Moving into the first floor of James Hall as a freshman, "Amherst culture was a shock," according to Friend.
Starting out as a philosophy major, Friend eventually switched to an economics and computer science double major. He recently completed his thesis in economics, entitled "High Stakes Testing in Public Schools."
"I realized that I'm better at quantitative thinking," Friend said of his switch in
majors. "I am very passionate about political issues and humanity issues, but the
actual grunt work of computer work is what I enjoy."
A diverse education
As Friend nears graduation, he continues trying to reconcile his passion for both computers and political issues. "When I'm looking down, I don't want to be reading books and writing papers; I want to be computing," Friend said. "But when I look up, I don't want to be staring at microwaves and atom bombs; I want to see a better world."
In his first year, Friend immediately involved himself in various aspects of life at the College-as a founding member of the Diversity Educators and the only male member of the Peer Advocates of Sexual Respect at its founding, Friend has extended his influence beyond traditionally male activities.
The foundation of Diversity Educators allowed many important concerns at the College that were not being discussed at the time to be aired. "It just sounded really exciting," said Friend. "There were just a lot of issues that were going on at Amherst, and there was no outlet for them."
As he became more involved, Friend also began learning more about class and race issues. "I was having a lot of formulations here with what I saw: class issues, how to be aware of what your own class means, racial issues," he said.
Friend said that working in Valentine for his work-study job also provided him with insights into these issues. In addition to making him think, both his work-study job and extracurricular activities helped Friend to make several long-lasting friendships.
"Noah Winer ['01] and Kim Palmer ['01] provided a personal think-tank during my political activism and have been good friends ever since," Friend said.
"I met a lot of people who I'm still friends with now, so I made a lot of connections that way." he added. "I think that also gave me insight into the privilege on campus. Just cleaning up after people you can see how disrespectful people can be."
Letting off steam
Friend expressed his impressions about class through the publications on campus. "My big event was when I saw The Indicator and really liked some of the articles I read in there," Friend said. "So then I wrote an article comparing upper-class college fraternities to inner-city gangs."
Friend was able to extend these interests in the classroom. "My freshman seminar was with President [Tom] Gerety, and it was called 'Inner-city America.' There were a lot of similarities between how men take advantage of their privilege as men, regardless of their class," Friend added.
Despite his involvement in numerous activities, Friend said that he was angry after his first two years at Amherst because of his parents' divorce and a dislocated shoulder, which prevented him from skateboarding. "I didn't really have an outlet for that anger, and I was certainly more aggressive than I would have liked to have been," Friend said.
"It wasn't like I loved Amherst and wanted to make it better," Friend continued, "it was that I didn't like Amherst and wanted it to change. And that's not effective and not a great way to live your life. I regret that, definitely."
"So my outlets became very political," he continued. In addition to writing for The Indicator and eventually becoming its publisher, Friend also served on the Trustee Committee on Student Life.
Along with his political interests, Friend found a specific cultural aspect of the College motivating. One of the main reasons Friend moved into Drew House the second semester of his freshman year was the inspiring Kwanzaa celebration that he attended.
"I went to Kwanzaa my freshman year, and it felt like the first time I had seen
really inspiring work-really impressive people," Friend explained. "I wasn't impressed with my classmates and this is the first time I was. So that's why I wanted to live in Drew House. It fostered that kind of energy."
The pawn shop
Friend founded the Amherst Chess Club his freshman year, which quickly "became a very big thing" for him. As president of the club his freshman and sophomore years, Friend organized weekly meetings at the Campus Center where more than 20 people would go to play chess each week.
He currently tutors a 10-year-old, the son of a Smith College professor, in chess for an hour each week. Friend also recruited a chess grandmaster to come to the College and
play 30 people at once in a simultaneous exhibition. "Everybody loses," Friend said despondently.
A cup of Java and some C++
Friend's interest in computer science began as soon as he took Computer Science 11. "I took a few computer science classes my freshman and sophomore years, and I totally fell in love with computer science," he said, "I was that student in CS 11-never programmed in my life-begging the professor for more homework."
"I felt good about economics, but I thought computer science was fun. [Economics] was an outlet to be quantitative and political whereas computer science was just a plain good time," he added.
A major shift in Friend's classes occurred during his junior year. "My entire junior year, I took nothing but math, economics and computer science. I've taken courses in 14 departments here."
Friend has incorporated his love for computers into the activities that he has pursued at the College. He started making web pages for the Diversity Educators and Student Health Educators. "That's how I got into computers," Friend explained, "I got this idea that I could use computers for the good of the groups I cared about."
As he worked more with computers, he began to take on more difficult projects. Friend took the "course conflict eliminator" project that Luis Hernandez '01 was working on and rewrote it to create the College's course scheduler on the Internet. "That was sort of my first claim to fame in the computer world on the Amherst campus," Friend added proudly.
Friend also masterminded the online voting for SGO elections. What began as a simple survey online developed into an online voting system with security features. "I knew that computers could make this voting thing so much easier. It would save paper first of all ... and ideally people would vote online without the government officials having to table," Friend said. "But more importantly it would save time in counting those votes."
"Now we've had every major election using the online voting system," Friend said. He will spend most of June finishing the program projects that he started at the College.
Computing his future
After graduation, Friend plans to move to Seattle where he will work as the program manager for flagship.net in Redmond, Washington. "There were other companies that I respected more, but with the downturn in the stock market, they went out of business before they could hire me. And paying off my loans was a higher priority than I wanted it to be," Friend said.
Friend's girlfriend, Smith senior Molly Curren, is moving to Seattle with him. The two knew each other in high school without knowing where the other had applied or been accepted. Curren luckily happened to choose Smith while Friend happened to choose Amherst.
"She's definitely been my best friend, partner and biggest influence in my life and at Amherst," Friend said.
As he starts his job, Friend said that he is still trying to find a way to balance quantitative computer work with humanitarian ideals. "That has sort of turned into my paradigm," Friend said. "So right now, I'm astray. I'm just confused."
Friend is sure, however, that he can use computers to help people.
After working for a while, Friend said he plans to "come back, go to grad school and pursue my dreams. ... It could be teaching. Probably it will be in computer research that I think is consistent with my political ideals. Because I do believe that computers can help people."
"No, it's not food for the hungry," Friend said. "But there are many organizations that could be more efficient at providing food for the hungry with computers."