The RHCJC
Meet the Southern Miss Student Writing Code for a Hattiesburg Newsroom
Nick Sharma splits his days between class, the newsroom and a growing list of projects of his own
HATTIESBURG — Most mornings, Nick Sharma is in class at the University of Southern Mississippi. Most afternoons, he is at the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center, working on the software that helps the newsroom get its stories out.
Sharma, a computer science major with minors in business and mathematics, joined the center in May. Since then he has helped launch its mobile app and built tools that take some of the routine work off the staff's plate.
Sharma doesn't see much of a line between the code and the business around it. He is as likely to be reading about how a company makes its money as he is to be reading documentation, and he usually has opinions about both.
Data is where those interests meet. Hand him a spreadsheet and he wants to know what story the numbers are telling, then build something that tells it better. It is the same instinct whether the subject is a newsroom's readers, a balance sheet or a league table.
He wrote his first production code as an intern in Kathmandu, Nepal, nearly 8,000 miles from Hattiesburg. He is on track to graduate in May 2027.
See SHARMA, Page 4A
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