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Pitt’s thriving computer science club builds community

Computer science is a demanding and competitive major, but the Computer Science Club at Pitt aims to give these students a community. From fireside chats to internship prep workshops, Insiah Kizilbash said there is something for every student.

“We aren’t competitive, cutthroat or secretive,” Kizilbash, the club’s sponsorship coordinator, said. “We’re very much a community, and there’s always someone you can turn to.”

With a rapidly growing social media presence and a focus on building community, Pitt’s Computer Science Club provides opportunities for students to connect, learn and succeed in tech.

Club president Nij Patel, a senior who joined the CSC during his first semester, said that the club helped him secure internships and meet new people, which led him to take on a leadership role. 

“I love the collaborative environment that the club allows students to have, especially in a competitive field like computer science,” Patel said. 

The club has increased its Instagram following by thousands. In the last year, it has grown from 500 followers to around 12,200 followers, making the club the most followed organization at Pitt.

“We had a huge boom this year,” Patel said. “We started posting memes and reels and they started to do really well. One of the reels got 60 million views.” 

Its growing social media presence has reached a national audience. Patel said he is “interested to see how this will help the club grow.” 

“When I look at the map of our followers, most of them go to Pitt,” Patel said. “But there are followers across the country and the world.”

Social media has also helped raise awareness for the club on campus and increase the number of attendees at meetings. 

“At our first general board meeting in the fall, almost 300 people showed up,” Patel said. “Then we had around 200 people at the next six meetings. Seeing attendance like this has been really exciting.” 

Besides meeting twice a week, the club holds other events for students to learn and grow. One workshop, called Zero to Offer, helps students land their first internship through a series of five workshops. 

“When I first came to college, I didn’t even know what an internship was,” Patel said. “Joining this program matched me with an upperclassman and helped me build my resume and LinkedIn. I learned how to articulate the experience I already had, and I landed an internship at Fidelity Investments my freshman year.”

Shreyash Ranjan, the club’s events coordinator, said CSC has found “guaranteed success” in the program, where students who attend all the workshops and stay motivated will get an interview or internship position.

“We match new members with juniors and seniors who have been through the process before,” Ranjan said. “They know how to crush the career fair and how to succeed in interviews.”

Along with these workshops, the club hosts fireside chats with experienced tech professionals in the field. Patel started this initiative this year, thinking it would be valuable to students.

“I would see a bunch of tech content creators on social media, and realized that my friends in computer science noticed these creators too,” Patel said.

The club is also sponsored by multiple companies that it partners with for events, including Google, BNY and the Naval Nuclear Lab.

“My main job is to maintain corporate relations with our sponsors, as well as reach out to potential companies who want to be sponsors,” Kizilbash said. 

The club also hosts social events for members to get to know each other, such as a retreat for the executive board. Ranjan said that the club also hosted a tech formal last semester and will host another one this spring.

“Computer science majors can be a little antisocial,” Ranjan said. “I’m also a part of a business fraternity, and that’s where I see a lot of communication and collaboration. We’re trying to promote that as we go on into CSC the next couple years.”

While the club is doing a lot on campus, it hopes to continue to be recognized nationally for its social media presence and internship list.

“We have an internship repository, which is a link that posts all the internships that are available to in the computer science realm,” Ranjan said. “Anytime you look at it, it has over 1,000 viewers and it’s used by around 200,000 people. There’s a Harvard Business study saying it’s the best place to go to for internships.” 

Patel said that he’s had other computer science clubs across the nation contact him asking for advice on running their clubs.

“I’ve worked with students at Penn State, Carnegie Mellon and even a school in Australia,” Patel said. “It’s amazing that we’re being recognized and it makes me really happy.” 

Kizilbash said that the club has “worked really hard to make events and initiatives engaging.”

“Computer Science Club, in some ways, makes up for things you can’t just find in classes,” Kizilbash said. “Once you make friends here, you kind of make friends everywhere.”

Patel said that this year was “truly transformative for CSC.”

“In previous years, there wasn’t as much interest in leading because of all the work and lack of community,” Patel said. “Now we’re seeing several people that want to stay in the organization and maintain it for years. I’m confident that CSC will grow even stronger in the years to come.”

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