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Ask HN: Side projects that get noticed

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I'm currently in University for Computer Science, and I'm aware that in this field, side projects matter as much, if not more than your GPA.

Currently, I do small web based side projects. They are not big, they are not complicated and they are not special. I just do it because like doing it. I never like to put my web based projects on my resume as I don't see them as anything special or noteworthy. However, I would like to branch out, and really get my hands dirty. I want to do stuff a real computer scientist would do.

Can someone help me with what kind of side projects that really catch an employer's attention? Employer such as: Google, Apple, facebook, Microsoft and etc.

Thanks!

2 comments

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zaras
I had the same question has you last year, and I decided to apply to the Google Summer of Code, which is a project founded by Google to promote student engagement in the open source world (for more details https://code.google.com/p/dynnetwork/). Was awesome, and opened many doors for me :)

It's hard to start a project on your own and engage others. Get instead involved with an open source community that you find exciting, and which has already traction. This will expose you to a bigger audience, and will also give you a perception on what people really want and need.

...and as a last tipp, don't be shy to promote yourself, it's a pool of sharks out there ;)

hope this helps and good luck!

mswen
I would design a project with the following components.

1. A web crawler/spider that visits several sites every day. While there the crawler should captures data in a systematic way through parsing the DOM, using regular expressions and accessing APIs (not all on the same site).

2. Then create scripts that clean, organize and store the data in a database of your choosing.

3. Add value through algorithms and analysis. Apply some analytical processes to the data to create new insight. It might be statistical processing, it might be machine learning or even just a clever mash-up from the multiple sites.

4. Design for human consumption. Practice design principles and data visualization to create an interesting and insightful presentation layer for human readers.

5. Design for machine consumption. Now make your new value-added data available to others in an API that other systems can consume.

All of this can be accomplished on a VPS server costing you $12 a month. You can build it all out of open source software.

While what I described could be quite complex and the basis for a business, it could also be very limited in scope, such that the main complexity is learning the various technologies and showing that you have developed the skills to put together a full working system.