General Info

Welcome to the home page for William and Mary's Developer Student Club (DSC). We are excited to have you code with us! Our mission is to work with other Developer Student Clubs around the world to bring computer science to the forefront of academics on campus.

William and Mary prides itself on its liberal arts approach to education; it's one of the first things you learn when you come to campus. What this means is biologists take creative writing, data scientists complete geology field work, and comedian Patton Oswald ('91) jokes about his experience in Physics for Poets.

William and Mary's DSC aims to build another bridge between computer science and the other disciplines through education series and consulting projects with research groups on campus. We want people asking questions like:

How can I use computer science to complete this task faster?
Can I write a script to automate this?
How can I use technology to make a bigger impact in my field?

With these questions in mind, William and Mary's DSC is excited to engage with you for the 2022-2023 school year. Thanks for joining us!

Technical Workshops

We host technical workshops every Tuesday at 7pm in Jones 306! Our workshops begin Tuesday, September 5th for the Fall 2023 semester. We are currently in a workshop series exploring APIs and how we can quickly build them with FastAPI. You can find the code for our workshops at our public github! No previous technical experience is required. Even if you've never taken a computer science class in your life, we start from square one, and have Core Team members on-hand to assist and explain. If this description all seems too overwhelming, come to a workshop and we'll walk through it step by step. Hope to see you there!

Fall 2023 Recruitment

Core team applications for the Fall 2023 Semester are now open! You can access the application here. Applications will be due at 11:59 pm on Saturday, September 30th. Interviews will be held with starting Monday, October 2nd, and accepted applicants will be notified by 11:59 pm on Sunday, October 8th. Everyone that applied will be granted an interview -- our interviews serve as an opportunity for the Core team to get to know applicants better, they are casual and have no technical challenges. We have openings on three of our projects, there will be descriptions provided in the application form.

We can’t wait to see all of your applications! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us by emailing developerstudentclubwm@gmail.com

Consulting

Developer Student Club at W&M serves as a nonprofit consulting group for research groups, student groups, etc. at William & Mary. In the past we have created websites, Python scripts, and apps. Below is a list of past projects and descriptions. If you or your organization would like to request an app, website, or other computer science-based product, read through our frequently asked questions below and send us an email (see below for what to include in the email).

Previous & Current Projects

Fall 2022

Organization: W&M Mock Trial
Deliverable: Script which collects emails from specified law firm websites and sends an automated email to each address.
Purpose: To partially automate the collection and messaging of thousands of emails, improving Mock Trial's outreach efficiency.
Contributors: Charlie Dobson (lead), Victor Tran, Myra Cropper

Spring 2022

Organization: Birdlife International and Key Biodiversity Areas
Deliverable: Website for researchers to query database with various file types. View it here!
Purpose: Provide an easy-to-use website for researchers to gather data on species living in specified areas around the world.
Contributors: Matt Cacioppo (co-lead), Clare Heinbaugh (co-lead), Victor Tran, Kritika Jothishankar, Charlie Dobson

Fall 2021 - Project 1

Organization: Alliance for Peacebuilding and Data Science for Sustainable Development
Deliverable: Map that you can view here!
Purpose: Create a map to allow branches of Alliance for Peacebuilding to connect.
Contributors: Clare Heinbaugh (co-lead), Matt Cacioppo (co-lead), Victor Tran, Charlie Dobson, Jorge Conda

Fall 2021 - Project 2

Organization: Wustholz Group (W&M chemistry department)
Deliverable: Machine learning algorithm
Publication: DSC contributors were co-authors on the article entitled "Blinking-Based Multiplexing: A New Approach for Differentiating Spectrally Overlapped Emitters" published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

See also this article from W&M News about the project.

Purpose: DSC at W&M is working with other W&M undergraduates to automate the identification process for difference chemical classes using one-dimensional convolution neural networks and novel experimental single molecule spectroscopy data.
Contributors: Emilio Luz-Ricca & Paul Scemama de Gialluly

Spring 2021

Organization: Alpha Phi Omega (APO)
Deliverable: Flutter app (for Android and iOS)
Purpose: This app connects students with APO's on-campus ride service, Campus Escort, which helps students travel safely between any two locations on campus at night.
App demo: https://youtu.be/BZkvsUaJXHE
App availability: Currently available for download on the iOS app store and the Google Play store for free!
Contributors: Clare Heinbaugh (lead), Matt Cacioppo, Jasmine Howard, Kori Riddick

Fall 2020

Organization: MindVersity
Deliverable: Flutter app (for Android and iOS)
Purpose: This app allows peer mentors and mentees to connect over a messaging platform and destigmatize access to mental health resources for people of color
App demo: https://recordit.co/zH0Ne9o9HY
App availability: Currently available on the Google Play store for free!
Contributors: Clare Heinbaugh (lead), Matt Cacioppo, Jasmine Howard, Kori Riddick

Spring 2020

Organization: Center for Geospatial Analysis
Deliverable: Python script
Purpose: Count thousands of cormorant birds to determine extent of overpopulation issue
Contributors: Clare Heinbaugh & Emilio Luz-Ricca

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What kinds of projects can you do?

We can create websites, apps, or scripts that aid in a research project. It also comes down to the skills of the Consultants that are available. While we want to produce quality code and products for clients, Developer Student Club at W&M is also focused on helping new developers gain experience. That being said, we have talented consultants who are up to the challenge, so if you're not sure if a project is in our wheelhouse, send us an email to ask at developerstudentclubwm@gmail.com.

How do you choose which projects to do?

We want to take on projects that have a positive social impact and relate to causes our developers are passionate about. While a lot of organizations may want a website for their group, there are many free or cheap online solutions that require no coding background to create beautiful, informative websites. If, however, you have a specific service you want to offer to users (examples include: a unique messaging platform, driving service, outreach organizer), we would love to hear from you about your potential project.

How many projects do you take on each semester?

We usually plan to complete 1-2 projects each semester. As we bring together more talented consultants, we may expand the number of projects that we take on.

What is the timeline for this process?

Once you send us an email with your project idea, we will contact you to set up a 30-minute meeting. Then, we will meet with our Consultants before the next semester and select the projects that we want to complete that semester. Depending on how time sensitive your project is, we may still be able to do your project in a future semester even if it is not chosen for the upcoming semester. Once we form a team for your project, we will need to go over the project specifications in-depth (about a 1 hour meeting) and then meet a minimum of 3 more times during the semester (about 30 minute meetings) to provide project updates and ask additional questions. Once the project is complete by the end of the semester or shortly thereafter, we will continue to offer help and fix any major bugs that come up for the next three months. After that period ends, we will hand over the code base to your organization.

How much does it cost?

Our services are completely free! We only ask that the client cover hosting or database storage fees, but for many projects these will be minimal or nonexistent. Again, our goal is to offer more computer science experience to our members and allow them to use their skills to give back to the William & Mary community.

Requesting a project

If you have read through past projects and FAQs and want to request a project, send us an email at developerstudentclubwm@gmail.com with answers to the following questions:

What is the name and general purpose of your organization?
Describe the project. For instance, if you are requesting an app, create a bulleted list of screens that you want to include and basic functionality.
What user data (if any) will your app/website/script need to store? If there are privacy concerns (i.e., payment information, sensitive communications etc.), please elaborate.
Approximately how many people do you expect will use your product?
How time sensitive is this project? If we cannot start it this upcoming semester, would you still want to be considered as a project in a future semester?
What times within the next few weeks can you meet for 30 minutes to discuss the project?

We usually respond to requests within the week.

We look forward to working with you!

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