[{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m in the process of documenting my current and past projects. This section will include technical write-ups, links to source code, and lessons learned.\n","date":"March 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/coming-soon/","section":"Projects","summary":"I’m in the process of documenting my current and past projects. This section will include technical write-ups, links to source code, and lessons learned.\n","title":"Projects Coming Soon","type":"projects"},{"content":"","date":"April 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"AI","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"April 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Blog","type":"blog"},{"content":"Messiah University\n","date":"April 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"Brad Kreider","summary":"Messiah University\n","title":"Brad Kreider","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"April 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/development/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Development","type":"tags"},{"content":" Free AI, Development, Data Science Tools For Students # A list of practical and professional tools for CS, data science, and STEM students interested in AI, automation, LLMs, agents, statistical analysis, software engineering, cybersecurity\nIncluded in this list are free / discounted tools for students that I have either personally used or believe would valuable in my education, professional development, and personal studies. I am hopeful that these student discounts and offers might become useful in your education as well!\nIf You Could Only Make One Stop\u0026hellip; # If I were in a time crunch, this is the package that I would chase down: GitHub Student Developer Pack. Encompassing a multitude of other offers inside of it, this resource is incredibly valuable and is worth taking advantage of! Here is what is included:\nGitHub Pro, GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Pages GitHub Copilot Pro JetBrains IDEs full license pack $200 DigitalOcean credit $100 Azure credit MongoDB Atlas credits Namecheap, .TECH, and Name.com free domain names Frontend Masters (6 months) Educative.io (6 months) Canva Pro GitKraken Pro (6 months, then continued student discount) In my experience, there is a lot of value in this package, most of it I have not gotten the chance to personally explore just yet.\nThe application can be somewhat annoying. My initial submission was actually rejected because I was missing some of the correct credentials on my GitHub account. Thankfully, the instructions made it easy enough to identify what was missing and make the corrections. At the time of this writing, my application has been accepted and I am awaiting the full extent of my offerings.\nIncluded in this offer is a free domain through Name.com. I was able to take advantage of this offer to claim a customer domain for this site!\nAI-powered IDEs and coding assistants # This is the space to explore in 2026. My experience is limited with these specific tools, but I believe that these are incredibly relevant and valuable tools to students.\nCursor Pro — 1 year free.\nYou get the full $240/year Pro plan: generous fast premium requests, smart codebase indexing, agent mode, and access to frontier models. Cursor is an incredibly powerful tool and is fantastic to explore the world of AI-development. Access to Cursor requires a card input; subscription will incur after the year trial is up.\nGitHub Copilot\nGitHub Copilot is a powerful AI coding assistant that integrates nicely with popular IDE\u0026rsquo;s. Although the student discount does not allow the fine tuning and choosing of a particular model to use, this is still a valuable offer that GitHub offers to students.\nAI/LLM # Claude for Education / Claude Campus Program\nIf your university is a partner institution, you get free access to Claude\u0026rsquo;s premium tier for as long as you\u0026rsquo;re enrolled, including a special \u0026ldquo;Learning Mode\u0026rdquo; that guides your reasoning instead of handing you answers. Sign up at claude.ai with your .edu email — the system auto-detects partner schools. Northeastern rolled it out to 50,000 students as a design partner, and these partnerships currently run through 2027. Also check whether your campus has an Anthropic-supported Builder Club running hackathons and workshops.\nGoogle AI Pro (Gemini) — 12 months free\nThe highest-dollar-value general AI plan currently available to students (normally $19.99/month). Includes Gemini\u0026rsquo;s advanced models, Deep Research, NotebookLM Plus features, and 2 TB of Google One storage. Verify with your .edu email. Google Gemini has some fantastic models and in my experience are enjoyable to use. This is a very great way to do free AI-development (intro to vibe-coding).\nPerplexity Pro — 12 months free\nA great AI for research and academic work.\nIDEs, dev tools, and cloud credits # JetBrains All Products Pack — Free for students. IntelliJ Ultimate, PyCharm Pro, DataGrip, WebStorm, CLion, Rider, and the rest. Worth ~$699/year. AWS Educate — Free AWS credits and training labs, no credit card required. Microsoft Azure for Students — $100 in credits plus free-tier services, no credit card required. DigitalOcean — $200 credit through the Student Pack. MongoDB Atlas — Free credits and expanded limits through the Student Pack. Namecheap / .TECH / Name.com — Free domain for a year. Grab one and throw a portfolio site on it. Vercel — Strong student offerings through the Student Pack, including hosting credits and v0 access. I would love to hear if any of these tools are useful to you or if you have others that you would like to recommend!\n","date":"April 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/student-resources/","section":"Blog","summary":"A practical roundup of the best free and discounted tools for students in CS, data science, and STEM — covering AI assistants, IDEs, cloud credits, and developer platforms worth taking advantage of.","title":"Free Student Tools: AI, Development, CS","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"April 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"April 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/fly-fishing/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Fly-Fishing","type":"tags"},{"content":" Background # After my initial experience with fly fishing in November 2025, I ventured out on a few different day trips with friends in search of winter trout. These were great experiences that allowed me to learn more about the sport and get a feel for making casts with a fly rod. Despite the experience that I gained on these trips, I still had not caught a fish on a fly rod.\nA Fishing Trip # My second official fishing trip would take place over my spring break in 2026. I was once again joining my buddies Tyler and Jackson, this time, heading several hours north to the dark sky region of Pennsylvania. We left from college on a warm Friday evening in early March, and made the beautiful drive north to the mountains. The specific region around our destination was one that was largely unfamiliar to me at the time, so I very much enjoyed being able get my bearings and view the scenery on our drive up. As we neared camp, stream conditions for fishing were not looking great. Waterways were very high and fast\u0026ndash; not ideal for our objectives. Yet, we remained optimistic about the rest of our weekend. Arriving at camp for the night was an awesome feeling, we were very excited to get fishing.\nAn Unexpected Morning # After a good nights sleep, we were greeted with a cold morning and no power at camp! Initially, we were planning on getting our run in before heading out in search of trout. However, the conditions of the morning dampened our mood, and we instead elected to drive up the mountain to report our power outage. As we gained elevation, we were met with snow\u0026ndash; a drastic change compared to the warm weather we had experienced the day prior in south-central PA. Eventually, we headed down the mountain to gear up for our day of fishing.\nOn the Water # We hit the stream around 9:00. This small piece of water was particularly fast moving given the current conditions, but we remained optimistic given its history of containing a healthy population of brookies. Fortunately for us, our optimism was not foolish! In the first real hole that we fished, Tyler quickly pulled out a small brookie! We were quickly stoked and kept making our way upstream, trading off at each particular hole. I got a multitude of opportunities to put my fly into some nice holes. Although I was not able to net a fish, I was able to catch a variety of trees that morning! Jackson and Tyler ended the morning with 2 brook trout each.\nSwitching Gears # After a successful morning of fishing, we took a quick lunch at camp and regrouped for the afternoon. We would be fishing some larger streams in search of larger fish. After a lovely drive through the mountains on state forest roads, we pulled off and made a very short hike down to our stream.\nA beautiful stream it sure was. This was my first real experience wading in deep and swift water. In the warmer afternoon and with many layers on, the cold water felt good on our legs. We fished this stream for about an hour, but were rather discouraged and not hopeful about finding success. Although clear, the water was quite high and swift; we were not confident in catching anything in these conditions. On our way out, we drove to a similarly sized stream nearby and found very similar conditions. Finally, we drove back to camp for the night and attempted to fish right at Tyler\u0026rsquo;s camp. We once again found the same stream conditions and called it for the day.\nBrookie Sunday # After a restful nights sleep (except for an unfortunate incident at 5:30 AM, sorry Tyler and Jackson), we arose on a beautiful Sunday morning, and took in the brisk air on a run. We soon hit the road after a hearty breakfast and headed for our stream. After our first days experience of poor conditions on large streams, we were once again targeting small streams in search of small native brook trout.\nArriving at the water, it was Tyler and Jackson\u0026rsquo;s goal to get me a fish. Thus, I was the one fishing all of the holes. It was a beautiful stream, and looked like an ideal habitat. I must admit, I was feeling pretty discouraged throughout this. Continually casting into trees and generally making the same repeated mistakes, I was not confident in my abilities to get a fish. I am thankful for the patience, encouragement, and advice that Tyler and Jackson provided this weekend!\nAfter some fly changes and fishing many holes, we turned around and sought after a different stream. After poking around for a while, were finally bailed on this stream as well. The flows were fast and we were not finding many pockets of fishable water.\nWith our time in the mountains coming to a close, we headed back to the old faithful stream that we had fished the day prior in a last ditch effort.\nI had a purple haze tied on, the fly that Tyler chose because \u0026ldquo;[the fish] had never seen this before.\u0026rdquo;\nWe made a beeline for the first hole that we had fished yesterday, where Tyler had caught the first brookie of the trip. Sneaking up to the edge of the hole, I made a simple roll cast and landed my fly in the center, below a little outflow. After a second, a fish swiped at it! I pulled it out and threw it back in, ready to set the hook. Sure enough, another, larger fish came up and took my fly. I was able to set the hook and Tyler scrambled over to net my first brook trout. It was an awesome feeling to say the least!\nAfter the excitement, we couldn\u0026rsquo;t help ourselves, and practically ran up the stream to fish a few more holes. It was another successful morning, as Jackson and Tyler each landed more fish!\nEventually, we made our way back to camp and packed up our gear for the drive home. All in all, it was an awesome way to spend the last couple days of our spring break.\nThanks to Tyler and Jackson for being great friends!\n","date":"April 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/my-first-trout/","section":"Blog","summary":"A Fly Fishing Trip to the Mountains of Northern Pennsylvania","title":"My First Trout","type":"blog"},{"content":" First Experiences # Towards the end of my freshman year of college (Spring 2025), my close friend Jackson started getting into fly fishing. Jackson got taken under the wing of our older friend Tyler, who was a seasoned fly fisherman. Tyler took Jackson out on the water and showed him the ropes.\nThe following fall, Tyler and Jackson invited me to join them for a camping and fly fishing trip in the PA Mountains. Being someone who loves the woods and camping, and who was curious about fly fishing and wanting to spend time with my close friends, I naturally went along! It turned out to be an awesome weekend. It was my first real experience camping in the state forest land of Pennsylvania, and also my first time taking my 4Runner on a real trip. I had a blast driving into camp with Jackson on dark forest roads on a dreary November evening. After making camp, we enjoyed a delicious meal of mac and cheese with bacon bits and chicken, topped off with lots of cookies!\nThe next morning, we got up early and hit the water. We were targeting small mountain streams, seeking elusive native Brook Trout. Throughout the morning, we fished a couple of different streams, all unsuccessful. When I say \u0026lsquo;we\u0026rsquo;, I must establish that I was really just hanging out, poking about the woods and observing my buddies throw dry flies in the water. We went back to camp for lunch and packed everything up. We then bushwhacked down the hill from camp to the upper stretch of another stream. It was a beautiful stretch of water choked in rhododendrons. Yet we once again found ourselves skunked. The day was not over however, and we had a few more spots to fish on our way out of the woods.\nFish On? # At this point, I had yet to even hold a fly rod, let alone attempted to put a fly on the water. Heading to a more prominent stream, we found some better looking water. Tyler and Jackson were able to each net a couple native brookies! Eventually, I found myself with Tyler\u0026rsquo;s fly rod in my hand, on a beautiful and open stretch of creek. In between catching a couple of trees, I was able to pitch my dry fly into a good pocket of water. At one point, I was not paying close enough attention, and a fish had actually took my fly. After missing this hookset, I was determined to pay better attention. I did this successfully, although unfortunately I didn\u0026rsquo;t react fast enough to set the hook!\nEventually, we left the woods and had a nice drive back to campus to conclude an awesome trip to the woods! This trip left me more interested in fly fishing and hopeful to get another shot at it!\nThanks to Tyler and Jackson for an awesome trip!\n","date":"March 25, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/my-start-as-a-fly-fisherman/","section":"Blog","summary":"A first taste of fly fishing on a fall camping trip in the PA mountains — chasing native brook trout with good friends.","title":"My Start As a Fly Fisherman","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"March 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Projects","type":"projects"},{"content":" About Me # I\u0026rsquo;m a Data and Computer Science student at Messiah University in the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania. I work primarily with Python, R, and Java, and I am very passionate about data science and visualization. I am currently looking for an internship in the Data / Computer Science Space, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn!\nOutside of my academic work, you might find me\nOut on a run training for NCAA DIII Cross Country/Track \u0026amp; Field (See my Strava widget for my activities!) Deep in a river or back on a mountain stream trying to convince a trout I know what I\u0026rsquo;m doing Driving the state forest roads of PA to access remote campsites Backpacking with friends in beautiful landscapes Find Me Elsewhere # GitHub LinkedIn Strava Please reach out on LinkedIn if you need anything!\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"Brad Kreider","summary":"About Me # I’m a Data and Computer Science student at Messiah University in the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania. I work primarily with Python, R, and Java, and I am very passionate about data science and visualization. I am currently looking for an internship in the Data / Computer Science Space, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn!\n","title":"About","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/photos/","section":"Photos","summary":"","title":"Photos","type":"photos"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"}]