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Publications on CCCS
Bhattarai continues legacy of computer science grads making the big time 1
'A chain reaction': Columbia College student from Nepal nabs gig at Google 3
Rotshak Dakup (at Microsoft) 7
Computer science program prepares graduates for the workforce straight out of college. 8
Networking event helps computer science students make connections 15
Posted by Kevin Fletcher | Feb 15, 2022 | Day Program, Featured Story, Students
Being a college student is a hard-enough task. For most, there’s an adjustment to a new community and meeting new people – as well as enduring a harder curriculum than high school.
Saurav Bhattarai has navigated all those obstacles while speaking a completely different language and integrating himself into a culture much different from the one he grew up with.
Not only has done all that, he’s thrived, and even before graduating from Columbia College later this spring, he learned that he has secured entry into Google’s Early Career Software Engineering Program and will work in its Google Ads unit beginning in June. He’s just the latest of a string of successful computer science grads earning programming jobs at top-notch employers.
The news is not a surprise for Associate Professor of Computer Science Dr. Yihsiang Liow, who considers Bhattarai one of his strongest students. Liow notes that in 2019, Google received three million job applications and had an acceptance rate of 0.2%. “It’s easier to get into Harvard than to get into Google,” says Liow, who has now had three students hired by Google.
Saurav Bhattarai
Bhattarai grew up in Biratnagar, Nepal, the country’s second-largest city of nearly 250,000 people. In order to better his educational opportunities, he moved in with his older brother in the capital city of Kathmandu to complete his final two years of schooling. He dreamed of studying abroad to go to college, but knew there was no way that could happen without a scholarship.
Fortunately, a former student from that school in Kathmandu had paved that very path.
It was there that he met a student by the name of Bibek Poudel, who had returned home during a break in his studies at Columbia College. Poudel had earned a Presidential Scholarship to CC, was double-majoring in computer science and mathematics, and encouraged Bhattarai to apply. “He was so kind to help me with learning more about Columbia College,” Bhattarai said. Poudel, who was himself recruited to CC by another Nepali, Ujjwal Pandey, is currently working at Precise Software in the Washington, D.C., area. Ujjwal is currently working at Amazon.
Bhattarai feverishly started working on improving his English skills once he moved to Kathmandu, but as with many languages, learned that there’s a difference between formal and conversational English. “My writing was very poor and my speaking was abysmal, but I knew I had to get better, so I started hanging out with tourists at the temples in Kathmandu. That’s really how I learned to speak English.
“It’s hard enough that there are 10 different ways to say something in English,” Bhattarai says with a grin. “I could communicate, but I wasn’t as funny as I’d like to be.”
He continued to improve, and when it was time to apply for the Presidential Scholarship at Columbia College, he was ready. Liow was one of his interviewers at Scholarship Day, and knew he would be successful. “Saurav is a fast learner and quick thinker,” Liow says.
For his part, Bhattarai credits everyone who has helped him get to this point: Dr. Liow, Poudel, various staff members in Admissions, International Student Services and Career Services, his colleagues in student government and fellow international students he’s met on campus. “I’m really grateful for the international community we have at Columbia College. Everyone has been really supportive, and they’ve made me feel like home. I’ve been in good hands.”
He is especially complimentary of CC’s Computer Science department, and puts it up against any in the region, including the much larger one in Columbia. “The CS program at Columbia College is hugely underrated. We have one of the top computer science programs in the Midwest. To have such a small group of students and still have a shot at the world’s top software companies – Google, Amazon, AT&T and lots of other industry-leading companies – is a huge deal.”
https://news.yahoo.com/chain-reaction-columbia-college-student-120046207.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
Roger McKinney Columbia Daily Tribune
No frantic job search will follow graduation at Columbia College for Saurav Bhattarai in May.
He has a job waiting for him — at Google.
He will be working in the Google Ads unit but doesn't know his specific job yet.
"I have no idea," Bhattarai, who hails from Nepal, said in a computer lab on campus last week. "I find out when I go there."
Even so, the job is a good one as a new college graduate, as he expressed his excitement.
There are 135 languages spoken in Nepal. It's in the Himalayas and Mount Everest is located there. The Buddha was born there, too.
"Nepal is a very small country with around 30 million people," he said. "It has a great diversity of land and culture."
"It's not the strongest country economically."
He learned about Columbia College from Bibek Poudel, who went to his high school in Nepal.
"One hundred percent of the credit goes to him," Bhattarai said. "I would not have known about Columbia College."
Poudel also learned about Columbia College from another student from Nepal. "It's a chain reaction," Bhattarai said.
Poudel graduated from Columbia College in May and now has a job as a software engineer with a technology firm that works with governments. In the position, he serves as a technology consultant for the federal Food and Drug Administration.
Bhattarai asked him about the computer science program at Columbia College and about the professors, Poudel said in a phone interview.
"I told him, 'You have to come to Columbia College,'" Poudel said.
He's very happy to learn that Bhattarai has a job with Google, he said.
"I'm proud I could be a part of his life," Poudel said.
Bhattarai said he's in touch with his high school to recruit the next Columbia College student from Nepal.
Computer science was a new subject when he started high school, Bhattarai said.
"I was lucky to go to a school where I was introduced to computer science," he said.
He likes solving problems, which is what computer coding is, he said.
He received a "top-notch" education at Columbia College, he said. Most classes are around 10 students and professors are always available to answer questions, eliminating alienation, he said.
"I definitely want to mention the community that we've got here," Bhattarai said. "It's an amazing community that supports you."
Career Services and International Student Services at the college also have been very helpful, he said.
Columbia College computer courses were challenging but enjoyable, Poudel said.
"They feel like challenges, but they're like games to us," Poudel said.
The small class sizes and the one-on-one access with professors is another benefit, he said.
Both received Presidential Scholarships to attend Columbia College.
"It's great to see our student success," said Yisiang Liow, Columbia College associate professor of computer science. "You don't go into Google by accident."
Columbia College students interact with one another and bounce ideas off one another and their professors, he said.
Without naming it, Liow seemed to compare the Columbia College computer science program with that of the large university in town, the University of Missouri.
"It's one thing to say it's a strong program and it's another thing to say it's a big program," Liow said. "They're not the same thing. In general, a big school will create more buzz."
Bhattarai also is the third Columbia College computer science grad to be hired by Google.
Working there now as a software engineer is Ryan Frappier, who graduated in 2017.
He's on the Google Cloud Media Team, supporting services that allow customers' media to play on smartphones, tablets and web browsers.
He also said his education at Columbia College was valuable.
"One very important thing for me was that the program initially put a big focus on being able to step through code and understand what it's doing," Frappier said in an email. "As a software engineer, you have to read a lot of code that was written by others, so being able to quickly understand it is invaluable."
Bhattarai said adjusting to U.S. culture came through just hanging out and also watching American movies.
His favorite food in Nepal is dal bhat — rice and lentils. He had to think when asked about his favorite American food, asking aloud if there is an American food.
He decided it is cheeseburgers.
"It's a guilty pleasure," he said.
rmckinney@columbiatribune.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CAAWu_3b4E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVT5GBjD2Sc
Posted by Columbia College | Apr 22, 2021 | Affinity, Alumni, Featured Story
by David Morrison
Julia Collins wasn’t sure what she wanted to major in when she was first accepted to Columbia College.
Coming out of Hannibal High School, she had already taken college-level Calculus I and II courses, so she knew she had a knack for mathematics. She gravitated toward the Computer and Math Sciences Department on registration day and, as luck would have it, Associate Professor of Computer Science Dr. Yihsiang Liow was staffing the room at that time.
“I just remember Dr. Liow and I hitting it off right away,” Collins says. “We had a great conversation. I knew that I just wanted to get a job after college. He said, if you come to the computer science program at Columbia College, you will have a job after you graduate. I was like, ‘sold.’”
Collins graduated from the Day Campus in May 2014 and started her first job at a data analytics consulting firm in Chicago the next month. Now, she works as a product manager for WorkMarket, a startup company under the ADP umbrella based in New York City.
She is not alone. Columbia College computer science graduates currently work for such internationally known companies as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Lockheed Martin, Bayer, Cerner, Intel and Microsoft, as well as companies such as MidwayUSA, Veterans United and Carfax that are integral to the Columbia community.
It’s a relatively small department that is carving out quite a reputation of producing highly qualified and competent graduates.
“If you do the math on return on investment for your college degree, the computer science degree at CC has to be the best in the region,” Collins says.
Here are some stories of how the Columbia College computer science program has benefited its students.
Application Development Manager | MidwayUSA, Columbia, Missouri
Unlike Collins, Sam Luebbert had been exposed to computer programming before he started at Columbia College. Still, he wasn’t sure he wanted to jump straight into the computer science program.
It didn’t take long before he realized that was the place for him.
“At times the program was tough, but I appreciated it and never again wavered in my growing passion for computer science,” Luebbert says.
Luebbert spent a year as an application developer intern at MidwayUSA while he was still attending Columbia College. He had a job waiting for him as an application developer upon graduation. After a few years, he was promoted to his current position, where he manages a team of three developers.
Sam Luebbert ’14
Liow says that the mission of the Columbia College computer science program is to not only prepare its graduates for their first job out of school but to equip them with the necessary skills to put them in prime position for promotions down the line.
“When they join a company, they understand how to talk to people and what the requirements are for their software, that they have the ability to analyze a problem, design solutions and produce or program a solution for their client. That’s the minimum,” Liow says. “It’s not enough to just know your textbook.”
Columbia College computer science courses emphasize project-based learning and collaboration with fellow students. That way, graduates are well-prepared to move beyond the theory when they enter the workforce.
“The instructors often emphasized to students that the skills within computer science were not the only ingredient for success out in the real world,” Luebbert says. “This is absolutely true, as most software development supports a business. You can get ahead if you care about and understand the business versus just your coding.”
Software Engineer | Google, Mountain View, California
The first time Ryan Frappier heard about the Columbia College computer science program was from Nathaniel Graham, his teacher at the Columbia Area Career Center (CACC). Frappier started out at the Career Center learning graphic and web design tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator before moving on to programming.
“I thought it was really cool I could just type some random stuff and have a webpage after it,” Frappier says. “In a professional setting, you’re often given code to work with. You need to be able to step through it and understand it. That was something that was really emphasized by Dr. Liow and the program. Understanding how that was so directly applicable was a really good thing for me.”
Ryan Frappier ’17
Frappier completed two summer internships at Google during his time at Columbia College and earned a full-time job with the multibillion-dollar revenue corporation after graduation.
Liow places a premium on the sort of community outreach that helps prospective students uncover the hidden gem that is the Columbia College computer science program. The college has run a programming contest for high school students since 2015, a high school internship program through Partners in Education and coding events with middle school students. Liow has also served on the advisory board at the CACC.
These sorts of events and connections have helped the program grow in enrollments and recognition since Liow first started at the college in 2003. They have also helped students such as Frappier gain awareness of the program and grow in their interpersonal skills while completing the coursework.
“I would not be where I am without the experiences I had at CC,” Frappier says. “Being a tutor to other CC students and high school students for Dr. Liow made a pretty big impression on me as a whole. Having the opportunity to understand students and help them helped me grow.”
After nearly four years in the Columbia College computer science program, Michael Fisher has a deep appreciation for the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that Liow and the faculty emphasize.
Fisher was working at Central Bank when, at 23, he decided to go back to school for computer science. He thought that, even if he never made a career out of it, he’d at least have a cool hobby.
“Then I got into it and really fell in love with the entire discipline,” Fisher says. “I thought I had critical thinking skills until I got into it and realized that I might actually be dumb. They trained us to think in a totally different way.”
Fisher has used his passion for computer science to take part in a National Science Foundation program called Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) over this past summer. He gained acceptance to the highly competitive program in part because of glowing recommendation letters from Liow and Professor Dr. Suzanne Tourville.
Michael Fisher
Fisher is looking into pursuing a PhD in computer science.
“It teaches you about perseverance,” Fisher says. “The people who are successful are the ones who realize early on that it’s going to be difficult and who just keep persevering forward and accepting that it’s going to be challenging.”
The faculty and students have helped cultivate a tight-knit computer science community at Columbia College, all the way down to the Discord server where students can gather to ask questions, play games and stream movies, among other activities.
“Students just jump in and ask questions all the time,” Liow says. “We can look at one another’s work and the seniors can help the freshmen through the program. You get immediate feedback and, especially for programming, it’s really important.”
Product Manager | WorkMarket, New York City
At some point during Collins’ time at Columbia College, she and Liow came to an important understanding. He would assign exceedingly difficult programming challenges, which could take up to 12 hours to solve. She would come back to him with a steady stream of questions during the challenge to help her innovate a solution.
So Liow eventually loaned Collins some of his office real estate.
“He would just put a desk in the corner of his office,” Collins says. “I would work from the desk sometimes and, if I had a question, he would be right there. That type of availability was invaluable to my growth and learning. He really wanted me to make it. I felt that.”
Julia Collins ’14
The program’s small size allows students to maintain personal connections with the faculty, both while they are at Columbia College and after they graduate. Collins, for example, still calls upon Liow when she’s seeking career advice.
One-to-one attention is invaluable for students pursuing an intensive course of study like computer science, Liow says.
“If you’re sitting in a lecture with 400 other students, it’s a difficult environment for learning,” Liow says. “Having a small class makes it easy for students to learn and interact with one another. Most people are not aware of how strong our program really is. It’s just that, being a small school, we don’t make as much noise.”
Count Collins in as one of the noisemakers. “I hope over time people can understand how rigorous this program is and well-prepared the graduates are. People see that in me now that I’m out in the field,” Collins says. “I’m always happy to be a hype woman for the Columbia College computer science program.”
Posted by David Morrison | Oct 7, 2016 | Academics
The stereotypical image of a computer programmer — alone in his or her cubicle, writing line after line of code, bathed by the light of the screen — doesn’t really hold up.
From left, alumni Michael Hudelson ’10 and Zach Oppland ’14 talk with senior Garrett Waage at the Computer and Mathematical Sciences department networking lunch in Dorsey Gym.
(Photo by Kaci Smart)
science degrees end up in fields that necessitate teamwork on large group projects, or interaction with co-workers from other departments in information technology.
People skills are a big plus. So is networking ability.
Around a decade ago, Dr. Yihsiang Liow, associate professor of Computer Science at Columbia College, started holding yearly functions to help connect some of his new students with upperclassmen. Over the past five years or so, program alumni started coming back to meet current students.
“It’s to start thinking about the future,” said senior Garrett Waage, a computer science and mathematics double major who is currently interning at Veterans United Home Loans. “It’s a good idea to meet other people and see how they’ve gotten to where they are.”
Waage was one of nearly 30 students that lunched with about a half-dozen alumni in Dorsey Gym on Sept. 29.
The event serves an important function for both sides. Students get to see what it takes to make it in the professional world. Alumni get to scout the ranks for possible interns and future employees.
“Sometimes students that come in have only a vague idea of what they would do with a computer science degree,” says Dr. Suzanne Tourville, professor of Mathematics and chair of the Computer and Mathematical Sciences department. “They just think it sounds like a good field but often they haven’t had any real courses in computer programming or anything as students. So to talk to people that have that, and then the possibility of getting internships, is something that they’re glad to know about.”
Three of the alumni in attendance — Michael Hudelson ’10, Miroslav Lukic ’10 and Zach Oppland ’14 — felt an important part of their role was to provide realistic expectations for prospective professionals.
Lukic is the IT director at McNerney Management Group in Columbia, Missouri, and Oppland serves as his assistant director. Lukic and Oppland met through friends at Columbia College and, when Lukic was looking for a second-in-command, he knew Oppland was a person he trusted from the program that had educated him. Hudelson is a software engineer at Columbia-based The Turning Gear, web design and software development start-up he helped found.
It’s OK if you’re not pulling in six figures a year or two after graduating. If you don’t have a job at Google or Amazon lined up immediately, it doesn’t mean that making a career out of programming is not for you.
Success takes many forms. Not all of them end up on the front of Wired magazine.
“A lot of students maybe read about all the stuff out there, but I don’t think it’s that shiny and bright when you come to real life,” Lukic said. “They read about how, if you’re a developer, you can make $100,000 right away. Maybe in certain areas, certain cities, but not everywhere.”
From left, senior Ryan Frappier and alumnus Miroslav Lukic ’10 talk at the Computer and Mathematical Sciences department networking lunch in Dorsey Gym.
(Photo by Kaci Smart)
Or if you do have a job at Google waiting for you, like senior computer science major Ryan Frappier, that’s good, too. Frappier interned at Google each of the past two summers and wants to use his experience working for the company to pursue his true passion project. A visually impaired individual, Frappier wants to help create tools for people who have similar conditions.
He says the networking opportunities presented by Columbia College helped open him up socially.
“The first semester I came here, I was kind of timid,” Frappier says. “But Dr. Liow really encourages all the students to be active, and I just got excited by that.”
Posted by Guest Author | Jul 28, 2016 | Featured Story, Students
Ever wonder what goes on behind the world’s most well-known search engine? Or forget that real people are the power behind it? It’s true! Hardworking people make Google everything that it is, and Columbia College’s own computer science student Ryan Frappier is one of those people.
At age 6, Frappier dreamed of making video games — a dream that would slowly fade early in his high school career. However, after taking Intro to C++ Programming at the Columbia Area Career Center his sophomore year of high school, Frappier’s childhood dream of making video games grew into a passion for computer science, which he is currently pursuing at Columbia College. Frappier decided to put the skills he acquired at Columbia College to the test and applied for an internship with Google.
“A bit of time passed, and I was contacted by a recruiter from Google to schedule interviews,” Frappier says. “I had two phone interviews with each being roughly 45 minutes.”
A short time later, Google extended an internship offer to Frappier, but his placement was still undetermined. To help with this, Google asked him to complete a questionnaire to narrow down his interests and match him to a project. After one last interview, Frappier was placed in an engineering practicum position with the Chrome web browser team and would be on his way to his new home away from home: Mountain View, California.
As an engineering practicum intern, Frappier worked under the supervision of the project host and co-host to create a tool that would help the engineers on the team. At first, if Frappier came across a challenging code, he would try to solve the problem himself instead of asking someone else.
“I soon found that at a big company like Google, you cannot live under a rock. You must communicate with others,” he says. What really made an impression on Frappier was the culture of the company.
“One of the coolest things about the culture is that Googlers are encouraged to form and participate in groups that relate to their interests,” he says. “I practiced in multiple group activities with my mentor and was amazed that activities such as foam sword fighting or bowling were commonplace at Google!”
That’s right — Google encourages their “Googlers” to step away from the stress of work and enjoy the fun environment it cultivates.
“Also, I can’t forget to mention the free food,” Frappier adds. “Google’s main campus in Mountain View offered several different places to eat, and there was quite a variety.”
Not only was the food — free food, that is — noteworthy, but the whole experience gave Frappier a much better feel as to what a software engineer does.
“It has allowed me to confirm to myself that I really want to continue to pursue computer science,” he said. “I gained a lot of good experience and made great connections that will most certainly help advance my career.”
