If you’re a graduating computer science major, there’s a good chance that Tristan Naumann was your teaching assistant at least once.
Technically speaking, Naumann finished his bachelor’s program in December, opting to begin master’s coursework in computer science in his eighth semester.
“In many, many ways I’m that kid who furthers the SEAS stereotype,” the senior confessed. “I’m that kid who does problem sets.”
While he’s definitely a workaholic, his interest in Nabokov, working with underprivileged communities, and 5 a.m. food runs with his architecture friends defy stereotypes.
Naumann came to SEAS from Irvington, N.Y. intending to study chemical engineering, but a combination of the right—and wrong—classes changed that.
“I’ve come to terms with the fact that you don’t have to have to be completely sure of what you’re doing right now as long as you are relatively aware of what’s making you happy,” he said.
Computer science just seemed to be a fit for him.
“It’s about the elegance of problem solving,” he said. “The epitome of being able to solve a problem is being able to tell something else to solve that problem, and being able to express that clearly is the really beautiful part of computer science that I find interesting.”
For a class project, Naumann once wrote a new programming language called FIRE, designed to teach computer science students difficult concepts. While at Columbia, he served as a student representative for the undergraduate computer science program, and he was a member of Free Culture @ Columbia, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Association for Computing Machinery. Last summer, he interned at Google.
Taking an average of 20 credits each semester, which amounts to six or seven classes at SEAS, Naumann first began TAing sophomore year. He has assisted four classes since then.
“I love that I can spark someone’s interest in computer science, and it’s also amazing to be able to help kids who are basically just a year or two behind with decisions you wish you had help with,” he said.
He has taken his specialized knowledge to serve a greater cause, too. Naumann helped create an application for the organization One Laptop per Child, which equips children in Africa with affordably designed computers.
Naumann is heading to Redmond, Wash. in August to work as a project manager at Microsoft, where he’s likely also to complete his master’s in computer science remotely this fall.
He said he appreciated being in a school that allowed him to take classes outside his immediate interests. He cites a seminar on Vladimir Nabokov as one of his favorites.
“I love that SEAS allows us to incorporate many elements of a liberal arts degree,” he said. “To that end, I tried to take different classes with really smart people in other schools.”
There have been, however, the usual misunderstandings among friends and family.
“I cannot fix your printer,” he said. “I can barely use Excel myself.”