Rei Shindo Wins First Place at CCSC for App to Help Transfer Students
Rei Shindo, computer science senior at UC Irvine Donald Bren School of Computer Sciences (ICS), won first place at the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (Southwest) Conference held March 27-28 at UC Riverside.
Shindo’s winning project, Transfer Course Articulation Planner (TransferCAP), is a web tool that simplifies the course selection process for community college students in California. TransferCAP uses a custom-designed constraint satisfaction algorithm to help students navigate the challenges of multiple requirements for different colleges and pick the best classes for their goals.
The inspiration for TransferCAP emerged from Shindo’s own frustration and disappointment as a former community college transfer student. Because one class was missing from the requirements to transfer, he was unable to transfer to some of his preferred colleges without staying enrolled an extra year. “By the time I found out, it was too late,” Shindo lamented.
He explained that students who want to transfer to multiple universities often have to keep track of each school’s requirements for their majors separately. However, the requirement information can be scattered. This challenge can introduce a level of human error that can be costly. Missing even one class can either cost students their admission or thousands of dollars and lost time if they have to retake classes. Instead of students having to juggle the requirements, the idea behind TransferCAP is that the computer can track all the requirements at the same time.
“My inspiration is simple,” said Shindo. “I want to make sure that future generations of community college students across the state will never have to go through what I did. I know exactly what it feels like to do everything right, only to find out no one else is able to understand all the classes you need. I want to be the person who can take what they’ve learned from transferring to give students the real help they need and make it all painless.”
“Winning this competition feels validating to the work I’ve done, and it means the world to me,” said Shindo. “In the beginning, I wasn’t even sure if I’d be going to this conference due to the funding situation. Only a few weeks before the conference, I met with Don Williams, who was the interim ICS Student Affairs director at the time. He believed in me and my project so much that he decided to help fund my trip, which made the win possible. In the audience, I also remember the look that my advisor, Michael Shindler, gave me. He also took a risk on me when he accepted me into his lab, despite his lab already being at full capacity at the time.”
Michael Shindler, associate professor of teaching of computer science, said he was initially hesitant to take on Shindo because he was already overextended as an adviser. But after hearing about Shindo’s project, his process and approach and having taught him in three prior classes, Shindler agreed to advise Shindo.
“I knew that he was very independent and very driven,” said Shindler. “It’s very worthwhile to supervise someone of his caliber. It turned out to work even better than I expected. He’s a great student and did a very impressive job, and clearly, this research is important to him. This is not someone doing a project to check a few boxes for an honors degree. This is someone who had an honors thesis in mind. It was something he had talked to me about the previous year when he was taking classes. And it was exactly within my wheelhouse, something I’ve approached from another side before. Seeing him trying to not just research a problem, but research and build a potential fix for the problem is incredible. UC Irvine and ICS, in particular, are very lucky to have him, and I’m very proud of all the incredible work he’s done.”
Shindo said his work is just getting started. His next steps involve working with the state of California to give more community college students access to TransferCAP. He also intends to keep making more improvements from the perspective of a community college student. “More than awards, I think the most important thing for me is making a meaningful difference in the transfer system,” said Shindo.
“I would like to thank the community college system for inspiring me to make this tool. I would also like to thank UC Irvine, a school I’ve wanted to come to since I was young, for providing me with every opportunity I could hope for. They have given me so much. I hope that this tool is my way of giving back.”
– Tonya Becerra