This weekend, CSEE Professor Alan Sherman will watch as the UMBC chess team he directs plays in the Final Four of College Chess. The UMBC team will battle against teams from Webster University, the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the four best of the 44 teams that competed in the 2012 Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship. In fact, it was a four-way tie for first place.

Professor Sherman has served as the faculty advisor to the chess team since 1991 and helped build UMBC's reputation as the collegiate powerhouse of chess. UMBC has played in the President's Cup (the official name) every year since it was established in 2001 and has won six out of the twelve matches. Although Sherman's team is one of the best in the Americas, he acknowledged in an article in today's Washington Post that Webster is the odds on favorite to win this weekend.

"Anything can happen because it’s a competition," said Alan Sherman, UMBC’s chess director. "But I’m predicting Webster will be the clear winner."

The games start at 10:00am on Saturday at Booz Allen Hamilton in Rockville MD with the last match beginning at 9:00am on Sunday. Anyone can follow moves live on the Internet at Moroni.com.

Google announced awards for the 2013 Computer Science for High School (CS4HS) program and UMBC was again among the sites selected. The program is an initiative sponsored by Google to promote Computer Science and Computational Thinking in high school and middle school curricula. UMBC Professor Marie desJardins put together successful CS4HS workshops in 2011 and 2012 that were attended by 35 Maryland high school and middle school computer science teachers and administrators in each year.

The 2013 CS4HS Workshop will be held from 4-7 August 2013 on the UMBC campus. Dormatory accommodations and all meals will be provided, as well as a $50 stipend for each teacher who attends the entire workshop. The workshop will feature a mix of panels and presentations on a wide range of scheduled topics.  It will give both highly experienced and less experienced teachers an unparalleled opportunity to meet other Maryland CS teachers and to share ideas and innovations. Space is limited to 25 participants and registration is required by 4 July 2013.

The first workshop in 2011 led to the formation of the Maryland chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association and was the seed for the NSF-funded "CE21-Maryland" initiative that will culminate in a statewide Maryland Summit for Computing Education for educators and others interested in CS education on 17 May 2013.

Have you registered  for  CWIT's 3rd annual Spring into Leadership Event which will take place on Thursday, April 11th, 6:30-8:00 PM.?

This year's speaker is Tina Kuhn, the vice president of the Security and Information Operations (S&IO) business unit under the Cyber Solutions division at Northrop Grumman. The S&IO business unit provides intelligence-related systems and services to U.S. Government and international security customers. The organization’s focus is on full-spectrum cyber solutions that protect critical national systems and support the nation’s information dominance. 

7 Tips for Selecting College Classes

Andrew Roberts, an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University, wrote this great book that can help students squeeze far more value out of their college years than any other book that I've read.

[Read 15 good things to do the summer before college.]

Here are the broad categories that Roberts covers in his book: choosing a school (If you don't know the differences between a college and a university, you really should read this book!); selecting a major; choosing college classes; being successful in college; interacting with professors; learning outside the classroom; attending graduate school; and rules professors live by.

Because so many college students don't know how to take advantage of their academic choices, I'm sharing a few of the 25 tips for selecting classes that Roberts provides in his easy-to-digest book:

1. Visit 5 to 10 classes during the first week of a semester: Try a different class during every time slot. Sampling classes can provide an early impression about which ones are worthwhile and which would be busts. If a promising class is filled, try again the next semester.

[Get more tips on getting into the class you need.]

2. Aim for variety: High school students are not familiar with most subjects that colleges offer. That's a great reason why underclassmen, in particular, should sample as many different disciplines as possible. By dabbling, they are more likely to discover a discipline that they like.

3. Don't rush to complete general-ed requirements: Freshmen and sophomores tend to focus on fulfilling their general-ed requirements early, but Roberts says that's a bad idea. If you postpone some of the general-ed requirements, you can better determine which subjects that you'd really like to focus on in college.

[Think about 10 questions to ask before picking a college major.]

4. At least once a year, take a class that challenges your beliefs: Leave your comfort zone and become acquainted with world views that don't sync with yours. If you're a conservative, consider taking a class on Marxism or perhaps women's studies. If you're an atheist, try a theology course. A liberal could choose a class on conservative political thought. Even if you ultimately hate the course, Roberts suggests that you should learn more than if you had simply chosen a class that confirms your beliefs.

5. Take writing-intensive classes: Choosing classes that requires copious writing sounds grueling, but Roberts offers pragmatic reasons for volunteering for this torture. Employers want graduates who can write, and you're not going to get a pass even if you're majoring in a technical or scientific field. You will also receive more attention from a professor in a writing-intensive class since he/she must review what you write.

[What are the 10 ways to ruin a college paper?]

6. Read faculty evaluations: Most universities have students complete faculty evaluations at the end of each semester. If the results are made public—and they often are—pour through them. Students tend to agree with each other on what classes are best, and these also seem to be correlated to performance. Students perform better in classes that they rate highly.

7. Consider auditing classes: The typical college student takes around 30 classes during their college career. In contrast, a university may offer 1,000 or more. If you want to soak up as much learning as possible, audit some classes.

Name: Collin Wojciechowski

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: The Baltimore Partnership for College Access and Success

Location of the Organization (City, State): Baltimore, Maryland

Title of Your Position: Project Manager

Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science [Major] Media and Communication Studies [Major] Public Administration [Minor] History [Minor]

Expected Graduation Date (Month & Year): May 2013

1. Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research or service-learning position/assignment, including your day-to-day tasks and responsibilities.

The Baltimore Partnership for College Access and Success (BPCAS) is a brand new non-profit sponsored by the Greater Baltimore Urban League. The BPCAS works to place college students as paid mentors in Baltimore City Middle Schools, to help students achieve academically and guide them along the path to higher education. In my role as Project Manager, I am responsible for drafting this new organization’s Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan will outline how the organization functions now and where it would like to be in terms of funding and outreach over the next ten years.

2. What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company and what have you found most challenging?

One of the best parts of my internship is the ability to work with students. The BPCAS is based in an East Baltimore Middle School and every day I get to work with students on their various summer projects. It is so rewarding to be able to help a student on a math problem or an English assignment and then see his or her excitement when they get the answer correct. By far the most challenging part of my job is to help secure funding. Even though this organization is doing so much good, this harsh economic climate has made securing grant funding extremely difficult.

3. What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another summer activity?

The most unique experience I have gained from my time with the BPCAS is the privilege of writing the Strategic Plan. Being given the opportunity to do long term planning for an organization that has the potential to have a positive statewide impact has been exhilarating.

4. How do you see your summer work as meaningful? Has it given you a chance to work on issues or with communities that matter to you?

The work that the BPCAS is doing is extremely meaningful, both to me personally and the Greater Baltimore community. By getting paid mentors into these middle schools we are not only making a positive, proven, and lasting impact in the lives of these young people but also providing fantastic opportunities for college students to be a part of Baltimore. For me, getting the chance to make a positive impact for youth in the city I love is the best way imaginable to spend a summer.

5. How has your summer experience shaped the way you think about your power to impact the world? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

My work with the BPCAS, especially drafting the Strategic Plan, has shown me how much impact one person can have on a community, even if their just an intern. Because this plan is now in place, the BPCAS will now have a stronger, more concrete, structure that will allow them to bring in more funding and expand to several parts of Maryland. When that happens, more students will be mentored, meaning college attendance will go up, crime will go down, and Maryland will be that much stronger.

Tresys Technology, a provider of technology and engineering services for customers with high-security requirements, announced the "Tresys Technology Scholarship" for UMBC students. The merit-based scholarship is intended to support incoming sophomore or junior computer science majors at UMBC with demonstrated financial need and who have obtained or transferred a grade point average of 3.0 or greater. There is a preference given to students interested in computer security. The scholarship, managed by the UMBC Foundation, may be renewed for a second year, contingent on the student’s academic performance and continued financial need. Scholarship recipients are also invited to apply for paid internship positions at Tresys.

Tresys also announced the first two recipients: UMBC Computer Science juniors Sven Rivera and Sean Hoover, who both received scholarship awards of $2,500. Sven transfered to UMBC after attending Carrol Community College and Howard Community College and Sean came to UMBC as a transfer student from New Mexico State University.

For more information or to apply for future awards of the Tresys Technology Scholarship scholarship, visit the COEIT scholarship page.

Health Solutions has a positio/n for someone to design and develop computer software solutions to support a range of Internet-based applications. Apply the principles and techniques of Object Oriented Programming, MVC design patterns and frameworks, and mathematical analysis to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of scalable and maintainable web based and Intranet-based software solutions. Required skills include the following.

• Web programming and software development experience
• Experience in hand-coding HTML/5, and semantic markup
• Knowledge of CSS and cross-browser compatibility
• Ability to write clean, readable, structured and well documented code in Javascript / AJAX and PHP 5+
• Must be fluent in PHP
• Ability to plan and design web applications in PHP
• Proven experience in development and implantation of high traffic applications
• Attention to detail
• Creative thinking and problem solving skills
• Database design and maintenance

This position is located in the Health SOlutions Owings Mills, Maryland Office. Please send resume and salary requirements to it @ healthsolutions.com.

Health Solutions has a positio/n for someone to design and develop computer software solutions to support a range of Internet-based applications. Apply the principles and techniques of Object Oriented Programming, MVC design patterns and frameworks, and mathematical analysis to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of scalable and maintainable web based and Intranet-based software solutions. Required skills include the following.

• Web programming and software development experience
• Experience in hand-coding HTML/5, and semantic markup
• Knowledge of CSS and cross-browser compatibility
• Ability to write clean, readable, structured and well documented code in Javascript / AJAX and PHP 5+
• Must be fluent in PHP
• Ability to plan and design web applications in PHP
• Proven experience in development and implantation of high traffic applications
• Attention to detail
• Creative thinking and problem solving skills
• Database design and maintenance

This position is located in the Health SOlutions Owings Mills, Maryland Office. Please send resume and salary requirements to it @ healthsolutions.com.