Josh Pitkofsky — Students In Tech
Why did you chose to study computer science/pursue tech? How did you begin your tech journey?
I really enjoyed science in highschool but I was interested in focusing on philosophy, writing, and history in college. I had been pretty heavily involved in the volunteering community through Key Club and a Jewish philanthropic organization. I started to think that the way to make the biggest positive impact in society involved software in someway. This wasn’t exactly a novel idea because I went to high school in the center of Silicon Valley and it was clear that tech was touching many lives already. I think part of me chose computer science for emotional reasons; I could work towards something that helps a lot of people. At the same time part of me went into CS for pragmatic reasons. This whole computer thing didn’t exactly seem like a passing fad and if computers were going to be in our lives for a while I thought I might as well get a deeper understanding of how they work.
Favorite area of computer science?
Computer vision interests me because I’m such a visual person and I love art and film. I also really do think VR (Virtual Reality) and 360 video have the potential to help people tell their stories more effectively, in a more immersing way and more meaningfully, and that is very exciting to me. I remember in intro my first project was a text based adventure game. I loved the freedom that CS gave me with my writing. When one can combine CS with art and storytelling, really cool things start to happen. I must add a caveat: I don’t think technology should be used as a creative crutch; one can tell a fantastic story with stick figures and an awful story with the most advanced tech.
Favorite project?
I loved building the AIT app for the Aquincum Institute of Technology. The app included features to help acclimate students studying abroad to a new environment with a focus on language and localization. This was a blast to build because I was working with a group of close friends. Another fun one was at my first hackathon ever, HackGT at Georgia Tech. I remember we came up with an idea on the bus ride to the airport at 4am and then spent the next 36 hours working on the app. Although we didn’t finish the app, we learned so much and had a blast.
Other hackathons
I went to YHack at Yale with a few friends. During the hackathon Yo was pretty big. Yo is an app that let you subscribe to notifications and also let you send something (a ‘Yo”) to something (a phone) and that was it. So we were like what if we can turn Yo on its head and instead of only receiving input what if, when I want something external to happen, I send a “Yo.” So we tried to create a platform for other developers to turn Yo into a remote control for life. Like IFFT triggered by a Yo. Essentially if you send a “Yo” to your electronic cat feeder’s yo handle, for example, then the cat will get fed. You could write a few lines of code on top of our pre-defined library and tell us what information you needed to know from your users to make the app work. We then provided developers a callback endpoint on our server. This saved the time of writing an entire web app just to use the Yo API, the cost of hosting the app on your own servers, and the hassle of associating information with individual users. Hackathons are a blast and are a fantastic opportunity to meet other likeminded people and work on a project passionately in a supportive atmosphere.
What was your experience like planning CarlHacks?
You learn what everyone on your board is like at two in the morning. It was a very positive learning experience. The board is full of incredibly dedicated and passionate students. In the beginning of planning, we focus on what the mission and vision of the hackathon are. Still, early on, so much still has to do with how much money we end up raising. We then move into a process of emailing and calling sponsors. Getting sponsors was a bit challenging because Carleton doesn’t necessarily have the name recognition that larger schools have. Closer to the event the board handles logistics like bus routes for picking students up, coordinating food, facilities and communication with hackers. Day of feels kind of like a dream because something you’ve been working on for 20 weeks is actually happening.
Favorite and most challenging course?
I think the Mobile Development class with Peter was my favorite class. He tried to cram as much knowledge in our brains as possible in a short class period.
I think theory classes were generally the hardest. They’re abstract. But more importantly, I think it comes down to the teaching; they are hard courses to teach. I’ve found that students who recently took a course are often the best teachers of concepts covered in that course. They remember what the hard concepts were and more importantly, they remember why they were hard and how to get the point across.
How was your experience studying abroad in Budapest?
I think for one it was great to have professors that worked in the industry while teaching. My computer vision prof took us on a tour of ColorFront studios, and showed us what they were working on. I also loved the eclectic group of people. Everyone on the program was studying computer science for different reasons and it was exciting to meet students with such a broad range of interests. From being in a play to traveling, there were so many positive experiences. A lot of learning happens outside the textbook.
What are you thinking about doing after school?
After school I usually come home and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Today I’m not sure.
No, seriously. I know it’s cliche, but for me it’s very important to be working on software that helps people. I would love to combine what I know about neuroscience and cs in some way, especially in the field of accessibility. I also think there are some fascinating neurological issues inherent in making VR and AR believable, that would be fun to work on. Lastly I am interested in the fields of brain computer interfaces and neuroprosthetics. We’ll see.
How do you think we can increase diversity in tech?
I don’t think there is one silver bullet idea that will solve the issue. Increasing awareness about unconscious biases, mentoring and supporting underrepresented talent, and creating a culture and environment where everyone feels welcome would be a start. Recently I attended a diversity in tech talk that made a very important point; that basically cs has been skewed from the beginning. Ever since computers became personal household objects they were marketed as “boy’s toys.” Guys would come home and play with computers, and learn how they worked and girls wouldn’t. Then these guys would end up in college CS classes and the professors gradually began to assume basic knowledge even in intro classes. I think Carleton tries to teach it’s classes to as diverse a range of students as it can. But I still know many friends that were intimidated by students that were making minecraft on the first day of intro to computer science. Hackathons could be one thing (to increase diversity) but who’s going to go to hackathons? In general it’s people who already know how to code. For CarlHacks we tried to emphasize that you don’t need to know anything. That tech isn’t all about the computer, it’s about communication and art and fun and actual emotion. There is that famous story about Steve Jobs and how his inspiration for Mac’s beautiful typography came from a calligraphy course he audited. We need students with interests in all areas to make computers more human. Still, as far as a comprehensive plan to reach different socioeconomic, gender, and racial groups; frankly I think I’m very well much on the learning side on how we should approach that problem and that is a very real problem.
Advice for students interested in studying cs or pursuing projects?
If it’s a project, just do it. Take it off the todo list, make a Google Calendar for yourself and block out time to work on your project. If you’re just starting CS or thinking about taking intro, I would suggest carving out a weekend and doing the Python CodeAcademy course. Find a mentor. Find someone to point you in the right direction. If you don’t know what terminal is, that’s okay. If you have a friend who is a computer whiz and knows a bunch of CS jargon it is easy to feel defeated and think “I’ll never get there”. But really, in the words of one of my computer science professors, the only difference between you and that person is simply time spent on the computer messing around with code; just because something is hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.
