School of Computer Science seniors Gabriella Howse and Connor Tsui both walk the halls of the Gates-Hillman Centers and mentor their fellow students. And while they're both recipients of this year's Mark Stehlik SCS Alumni Undergraduate Impact Scholarship, how they ended up in SCS couldn't be more different.

Now in its 11th year, the Stehlik Scholarship is awarded to SCS students who have achieved excellence beyond the classroom, making a difference in the field of computer science and the world around them. The award is granted to SCS students near the end of their undergraduate careers, and encourages them to increase their engagement in research and the larger Carnegie Mellon University community.

Gabriella Howse

Howse considers herself a planner, and choosing a major and university was no exception. She knew from her freshman year of high school that she would major in computer science, and between her junior and senior years, she took CMU's Fundamentals of Programming and Computer Science course (15-112) virtually. After that, she didn't look back. She toured CMU twice before she was accepted, then once again after she was admitted.

Howse joined SCS thinking she wanted to be a software engineer, then had what she described as an existential crisis. She was pointed to Associate Professor of Learning Sciences Amy Ogan's mini intro course in the Human Computer Interaction Institute, and then everything clicked. Howse said human-computer interaction unlocked new problems for her to solve that involved engineering, business, psychology and design. She then took Associate Teaching Professor Raelin Musuraca's User-Centered Research and Evaluation (UCRE) course.

"My joke is that UCRE is the gateway drug to user experience," Howse said. "UX (user experience) people have a unique way of thinking about problems because users don't know what they want, and even if they do generally know what they need, they're bad at articulating those things. UCRE presented this whole other school of thought for identifying which problems need solving."

Teaching others is something Howse has always enjoyed doing, and she said it helps her learn. After taking it her freshman year, Howse became a teaching assistant for 21-241: Matrix Algebra. Currently, she's a teaching assistant for HCI for Product Managers, a graduate-level course.

Along with teaching and classes, Howse is also a member of Alpha Chi Omega, and serves as the build chair for her sorority's booth at Spring Carnival. After four years, she said CMU traditions are what stand out.

"Carnival and booth building are what I look forward to the entire year," she said. "You're on Midway doing construction, and you look around, and every organization is doing the exact same thing. It's this extremely intense feeling of community that you don't get anywhere else."

This will be Howse's last year building a booth, but she isn't going far. She'll be working as an associate product manager at Duolingo after graduation.

Connor Tsui

From a young age, people only knew Connor Tsui as a cellist. Music had been deeply ingrained in his education from elementary to high school, and when it came time to choose a university, Tsui said computer science and Carnegie Mellon weren't on his radar. He was looking for combined music and engineering degrees, which led him to CMU for a last-minute cello audition.

During his visit, Tsui fell in love with CMU and enrolled in the combined Bachelor of Computer Science and Arts (BCSA) program. While taking 15-112, he realized that he wanted to transfer into SCS, and he began what he described as a mad dash to complete the core curriculum in a year. During that dash and some ensuing struggles, Tsui was pointed toward Mark Stehlik.

"I was scared because at this point, I needed to transfer into SCS if I wanted to graduate," he said. "I remember Mark encouraging me to keep going and to not focus on the goal or grade but focus on the journey and make sure I was learning. When I look back now, that advice is definitely what I would tell a new CS student: focus on learning and on why you're here."

That advice changed Tsui's mindset, and he transferred into CS and began working as a teaching assistant and, eventually, a teacher. Before coming to CMU, Tsui said he hadn't thought much about teaching, but after seeing how dedicated and effective his teaching assistants were in the core curriculum, he wanted to participate. He's served as a teaching assistant for 15-112 as well as 15-445: Intro to Database Systems.

"The academics in SCS are ridiculously hard, but I like to say that we have a shared camaraderie through the struggle," he said. "The competitiveness at SCS is not against each other, it's with each other. I don't think I know any person in SCS who wouldn't help if someone asked for it."

Now, Tsui is teaching his own student-led course (StuCo), Intro to Rust Lang. Rust is a programming language gaining rapid adoption in industry and Tsui and his course co-creators — Benjamin Owad, David Rudo and Jessica Ruan — wanted to share this knowledge with the student body. From lectures to weekly assignments, Tsui and his fellow instructors have created this course from scratch.

"We wanted to make this course something that everyone can learn from, not just students here but developers outside CMU," he said. "We put a lot of work into making high-quality slides and course materials. It's all open-source. And even though this is a student-led course, we are treating this like a mini CS course. We're taking it very seriously."

Tsui and Howse had similar reactions when they heard about receiving the Stehlik scholarships: disbelief and then pride for how the honor reflects the work and time they've put into SCS.

"College can make you question yourself, asking 'Are you doing enough, are you good enough at what you want to do and are you excited enough about XYZ?'" Howse said. "This award, among other things, is a nice bow on the entire SCS experience. But it's also a positive answer to some of those questions."