Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering

Freshman Direct-Admit Seminar

Autumn 2022


Course Information

Welcome! We are so excited to have every one of you in the Allen School community!

Key Links

Learning Objectives

Everything we do in our seminar toward one of these goals, which we have developed based on our experience and passion helping students thrive in the Allen School and the entire field of computing. These are in no particular order.

  1. Academic Success: Improve academic skills and adapt study habits, academic integrity, and broader academic engagement to college and the Allen School.

  1. Career Preparation: Broaden knowledge of career paths for Allen School students and develop skills and resources toward pursuing them.

  1. Personal Growth and Well-Being: Identify key self-care needs related to mental health, confidence, time management, communication, and happiness in college.

  1. Inclusive Behavior and Responsibility: Learn best practices for working in diverse and inclusive teams as well as how technological innovation can be a tool for or against existing biases and marginalization.

  1. Community Building: Feel socially connected to other Allen School students and an empowered member of the broader Allen School community.

  1. Extracurricular Opportunities: Identify co-curricular and extracurricular activities of interest to complement academic pursuits.

  1. Impact: Learn some of the many, even surprising, ways that computing, including research in the Allen School, can positively impact humans and society while being mindful that technology can also have negative impact.

  2. Knowledge Building: Learn some of the jargon and pragmatics of “life in CSE” that can seem obscure or off-putting to newcomers.

Meetings

We meet on Tuesdays 2:00-3:20PM in Guggenheim 220. We will have jam-packed agendas with several activities each day, so please arrive in time to be seated and ready to go.

Staff and contact information

Head TAs: Aditi Joshi and Yoonseo Song
Each student is in a "group" with two of these wonderful TAs:

  • Group 1: Thompson Ngo, Shreya Sathyanarayanan

  • Group 2: Khushi Khandelwal, Scott Wynn

  • Group 3: Manasa Lingireddy, Anokhi Shah

  • Group 4: Heer Patel, Rituraj Sohoni

  • Group 5: Kianna Bolante, Hayoung Jung

  • Group 6: Adit Gupta, Amrita Narasimhan

  • Group 7: Jaclyn Chen, Andrew Makin

  • Group 8: Akashdeep Bhattacherjee, Luna Chen

  • Group 9: Judy Kang, Thrisha Ramesh

  • Group 10: Jasmine Chi, Aditi Joshi

Credits

This seminar is a real team effort, especially with substantial contributions from the spectacular Allen School Undergraduate Student Services Team. It builds on the experience from prior years, including the amazing work of TAs from prior offerings.