5/2/2025 Rudy San Miguel
The 10th annual Sail event took place on March 29-30. The two-day event, run entirely by Illinois students, provides high schoolers a chance to see what it’s like to be a college student in computer science. About 140 high school students from across the state attended.
Written by Rudy San Miguel
The 10th annual Sail event took place on March 29-30, at the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The two-day event, run entirely by Illinois students, provides high schoolers a chance to see what it’s like to be a college student in computer science. About 140 high school students from across the country attended in person with an additional 90 attending virtually from around the world.
Sail co-directors Peter Lin, CS + philosophy sophomore, and Firmiana Wang, CS sophomore, said that this year’s event was the best one yet and stands as a reminder of its importance for young people interested in pursuing computer science.
“Sail is about connecting high schoolers with Illinois and the CS community,” Lin said. He added that it’s more than just learning about computer science. “[They] get to meet college students who are going through the experiences they would go through.”
Before Wang became a Sail co-director and computer science undergraduate, she attended Sail while in high school. She recalled the impact an undergraduate student involved with Sail made on her: “I remember she gave us an overview of the different research opportunities, as well as how to get involved in research and navigate the process here,” Wang said. “I didn’t know a lot about…research at Illinois. She inspired me to pursue those research opportunities after I came here.” Wang added that Sail clinched her decision to attend Illinois.
Day one of this year’s event took place at Siebel School and featured an RSO Fair, opening ceremony, Q&A panel, scavenger hunt, and 45 unique classes taught by current undergraduate students. The day concluded with a talk from Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider, CS professor, who has been giving a talk at Sail every year since 2021.
“I think Sail is the best event of the year. I may be a little biased,” Fagen-Ulmschneider said of being invited back every year. He said he admires that the event is run entirely by students and allows high schoolers, from first-year through seniors, some of whom have been accepted to the Siebel School, a day to explore the possibilities. “It’s rare you get to spend a whole day thinking about, ‘What is my future going to hold? What exciting things will I be learning in the next two to five years?’” he said. “The energy of the day is really exciting. It is the first time for some of those students to see what is possible in a technical discipline in college. Not just a campus tour. It’s in a classroom, nerding out, and I think that’s special.”
The second day was entirely virtual. Participants once again had an opportunity to select from the wide range of classes. A highlight of the day was a chat with Sail’s founders, Nathan Handler and Matthew Dierker, computer science graduates who were also original founders of HackIllinois.
Handler, a security engineer at Reddit, and Dierker, a Waymo software engineer, came up with the idea while having a meal in downtown Champaign. They were interested in recreating MIT’s Splash, an event for high school students to learn about computer science. Handler and Dierker first sought out a group of people with experience running large events. Then they reached out to the computer science department, who informed them that there was money earmarked for just such outreach programs.
“We were a go: we had money; we had a team; we had an idea which was ‘Bring prospective students to campus for a fun day; expose them to computer science, the university, and the computer science department, and just have fun,’” Handler said.
He added that the event had some very specific goals from the start. “Sail is important from an outreach perspective. That was always our goal with it.” He said that diversity was vital to the mission. “From a diversity perspective, even in the professional software engineering world, it’s really not as diverse as it can or should be,” Handler added that from conversations he’s had and studies he’s read, the key is young people. “It’s important to get to people while they’re still in high school or even middle school and show them that computer science is both fun and something they can do and succeed at,” Handler said.
The pair, who started Sail during their last year at Illinois, always knew the intent was to hand over the reins to the next generation. “They run it all themselves,” Dierker said. “When we’re on campus, we try to meet the Sail directors and offer help, but you have a fresh batch of energetic faces every year, and the best thing to do for the event is to turn it over to them and get out of the way.”
Dierker recalled that first panel he sat on with Handler and how impressive the quality of the high school students and their questions were. “Somebody asked about the future of computing—what do we think computers of the future look like? It was fun to think about,” Dierker said. “I wasn’t thinking anything like that in high school. Somebody also asked about lining up an internship or getting a full-time position. I don’t think I was thinking about that in high school, either.”
Thanks to Handler and Dierker’s groundwork, the event remains strong ten years later.Fagen-Ulmschneider directs all praise to the students who run Sail. “There are 40 or 50 student teachers who hold sessions all day long on Saturday and Sunday, who are our sophomores, juniors and seniors,” he said. “The day couldn’t happen without that group of phenomenal undergraduates who are excited to share what they’re learning at Illinois with high school students.”
Dierker emphasized that Sail is for any curious high school student, regardless of experience with computer science. He recommends not being intimidated by the kid in high school with his developed app or his own company. “The CS program [at Illinois] pretty quickly puts people on even footing. A message we would give at Sail is, ‘You do not have to have done this stuff in high school. You’re not behind,” Dierker said.
Ten years later, the founders marvel at the event. Handler says, “Seeing that it’s not only survived, but continued to grow and prosper, seeing that there are students who attended when they were back in high school who decided to go to the University of Illinois and take part in the CS department and are now helping to organize these events, that’s pretty cool.”
Grainger Engineering Affiliations
Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider is an Illinois Grainger Engineering professor of computer science.