The Computer Science Graduate Student Board is the liason between the department administration and its graduate students. The Graduate Student Board (aka GSB) is also affiliated with the Purdue Graduate Student Government. The board organizes technical talks, pizza parties, summer picnics, bowling nights, movie nights, participates in the graduate and undergraduate committees, and the faculty search process. To learn more about the Graduate Student Board, visit http://www.cs.purdue.edu/gsb.

The International Association for Computing Machinery is an international professional and educational organization dedicated to advancing the art, science, engineering, and application of information technology. The local chapter is open to all Purdue students interested in the field of Computer Science. The goal of the local student chapter is to aid and support student academic, professional, and social development.

ACM supports a number of developmental activities as well as social events throughout the year. ACM sponsors the orientation program for graduate students, the Computer Science fall picnic, programming contests, monthly pizza parties, and guest lecturers. ACM also compiles and distributes the Computer Science Resume Book.

2004 TopCoder Open winner Tomek Czajka, volunteered to teach undergraduate students the tricks of winning programming contests. Tomek opened his bag of programming secrets Thursday, February 24, 2005 to anyone who wanted to join. He will continue to teach undergraduates how to code under time constraints, with the long term goal of these training sessions being to have fun and to train a team of two for the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. Be sure to catch a training session to learn from a champ. Email czajkat@cs.purdue.edu to receive an account to be added to the mailing list.

Early in the fall semester, ACM invites Computer Science students to submit resumes which are compiled into a book. The Resume Book is distributed to any company willing to donate a nominal sum. Last year over 100 students participated and over 60 companies donated. The Resume Book sale is ACM's main fund raiser and a great way for students to distribute their resumes to potential employers.

Dr. Tim Korb is the ACM faculty advisor, and the joint ACM/UPE office is located in CS G47. ACM is always looking for new members with new ideas. Stop by the Fall ACM Callout to see what is planned for the school year or drop by the office. To learn more about Purdue ACM, visit http://www.cs.purdue.edu/acm.

The Computer Science Women's Network (CSWN) is an organization at Purdue University consisting of people (both students and staff) who are dedicated to helping women in the field of computer science. The leadership team that organizes most activities is made up of female students who want to reach out and help all of the women in CS.

CSWN organizes different activities meant to encourage young women to meet one another and also learn more about their chosen field of study. These activities range from picnics to technical talks to helping students find tutors if they are needed. Their goal is to encourage women in computer science to stay in the field and prosper. For information, contact the faculty advisor, Barbara Clark (clark@science.purdue.edu) or look at the CSWN web site (http://www.cs.purdue.edu/cswn).

Upsilon Pi Epsilon is an honor society founded in 1967 to recognize scholarship and professionalism in the Computing Sciences. The Purdue chapter of UPE was established in 1992. The local chapter of UPE sponsors a number of activites, including the annual CS Awards Banquet. One of the goals of the local chapter of UPE is to foster communication and the exchange of information within the Computer Science community at Purdue.

Membership is by invitation only, based on scholarly and professional accomplishments in the Computer Sciences. Candidates for membership must also meet minimum GPA and course hours requirements. In the spring semester, qualified juniors, seniors, and graduate students are invited to join. Receiving an offer of membership is quite an honor.

Dr. Samuel Wagstaff is the UPE faculty advisor, and the joint ACM/UPE office is located in CS G47. To learn more about the local UPE chapter, visit http://www.cs.purdue.edu/upe.

The undergraduate student board is the liason between undergraduate students and the department administration. For more information, visit http://www.cs.purdue.edu/usb.

Purdue is the home of Tomek Czajka - the top coder. Tomek has started training classes for ACM regional programming contests. Traditionally, our team has done fairly well at this contest. Top teams at the Regional Contest are invited to compete in the Nationals. Since the Nationals started around 1980, Purdue has been there eight times, taking second place three times. The team is made up of three programmers, plus an alternate, and usually consists of both graduate and undergraduate students. The object of the game is to write programs which solve some number of problems (correctly) as quickly as possible. Programming languages are limited to a subset of FORTRAN, Pascal, and C/C++. Rules and format vary from year to year. If you love writing quick-and-dirty code, working under unrealistic deadlines, and tearing your hair out, this is your kind of contest. Please mail Tomek at czajkat@cs for more information.