Class of 2017
As a Brazilian high school student abroad in Germany, Gabriel Guimaraes stumbled upon CS50, an introduction to computer science class offered at Harvard and available online to anyone in the world. The course uses lectures and problem sets to teach you to think more methodically and solve problems more effectively.
Guimaraes, who is fluent in English, became addicted and finished the modules in under three weeks. Guimaraes wanted this tool to be available to the Portuguese-speaking world, so he got in touch with the Harvard professor in charge and began translating it.
CC50, as he calls his rendition, is a website where Brazilian learners can upload their problem sets, see their grades, and get help on assignments, "similar in spirit to what is done here at Harvard," Guimaraes says. The ambitious high schooler went on to give the lecture three times, for free, to more than 160 students and uploaded the taped lectures to the site.
His first semester at Harvard, Guimareaes became head teaching fellow of CS50, which enrolls 700 students annually with more than 300,000 registered internationally. He plans to graduate Harvard in four years with both a bachelor's and masters in computer science.