CS News:
Daniel Epstein - Internship with Microsoft
In his classes, Daniel Epstein (CS ’12) learned about management techniques that software companies regularly use to keep group software coding on track. As an intern at Microsoft last summer, he saw these procedures in operation.
Epstein spent 12 weeks as a programmer on an Xbox team charged with developing games that tap new features of Windows Phone 7. At the team’s daily meeting, he took his turn reporting on his progress, just as he had expected he would. “It’s been fascinating to see the concepts of software design we covered in class put into practice,” he says. Epstein credits the encouragement of professors like Aaron Bloomfield and his extracurricular activities for preparing him for this prestigious internship. As vice president of Student Game Developers, he has recruited figures from the game industry to speak in the department. He was also part of a club team that placed second in the second annual Rosetta Stone Game Jam Competition.
In addition, Epstein was on the U.Va. team that competed in the world finals of the Intercollegiate Programming Competition, held this year in Orlando, Florida. Contestants had five hours to solve as many programming problems as they could. “That event took creative problem solving to another level,” Epstein says. “It was challenging, but a lot of fun.”