I don't really intend for people to read my writing—this archive is much more for myself than others—but in case someone ever asks me for advice specific to NYU CS, I'll point them towards this article. If you're reading this as an incoming CS student at NYU, congratulations! You'll probably have the best 4 years of your life here... if you make the most of it. Obviously, listen to the blanket advice, but there's a couple things I think people miss. I'm a rising senior at time of writing, and if I had another shot at NYU CS, this is what I'd do differently.

1. Credit

If you are a pre-matriculated student, get the AP credit (especially for Calc, CS, and foreign language)!!! Take community college courses (these might not count towards your CAS core requirements, but you can still get credit). Despite what you might read online, NYU is pretty lax on this. Each credit you save is, over the course of the semester, worth over $1000 in tuition fees, or XX hours taking a class you actually enjoy.

2. Grades don't matter

Good grades don't matter. It's good to study hard, but they don't actually matter for jobs and are not a 1-1 reflection of how well you learned the material. It's more valuable instead to be intellectually curious. A common mistake is to spend too much of your freshman year cramming for your GPA when it's arguably the one year that you can spend trying anything.

3. Freshman Year

Try everything in freshman year. Join clubs: Tech@NYU dev team, Blockchain & Fintech dev team, BUGS, SVS, QFS, BAC, and others. It doesn't have to be tech either—cultural clubs, frats, and anything you find cool! Go to events, meet new people. Join a VIP. Find a community and surround yourself with people you want to be like. This is the best time to find a friend, mentor, cofounder. Build projects, go to hackathons. Do research if you're doing nothing in the summer (reach out to professors around winter). Apply to fellowships. Look up people who have the jobs you want on LinkedIn, and follow what they were doing in their fresh/soph years. Use rocketreach and find recruiter emails. Work hard play harder. You'll always regret not doing something more than you'll regret doing it.

4. Found a club

This is probably one of my biggest regrets. The CS community at NYU is missing sooo many amazing clubs that other schools offer. An app dev club. A club that creates NYU-focused tooling to better student lives. An AI/ML club that builds products. A Software Dev club that sources work from companies. Refound ACM. Make project teams. So many options.... A lack of a excellence and talent hubs, in my opinion, is what most separates NYU from top CS programs.

5. Meet People

Most important for last: go out of your way to meet people. I'd honestly treat extroversion as a skill. One of my close friends used to taxi back to her dorm with the sole purpose of striking up and maintaining a conversation with the driver. Now, socializing comes naturally to her. NYU is a school where it's incredibly easy to feel alone in a big city. Having a support system underneath you and a wide reaching network not only advances your career, life is simply much more fun—you do more, risk more, live more. There's nothing more special than experiencing a moment (at the perfect place, with the perfect people) that you know you'll reminisce on later.

I think that's enough rambling at 4 am, goodnight :)