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UMBC is running a summer day camp for rising 9th grade girls
at UMBC this summer. The goal is to increase their interest
in computing by sharing some of the exciting aspects of the
field and teaching them to use technology like Alice,
Python, and Dreamweaver. The camp is run by a group of
student coordinators who are excited and passionate about
sharing their interest in computing with younger students.
The camp runs for five weeks, from June 24 - July 26. The camp organizers are especially interested in recruiting students from under-served communities and from less affluent backgrounds, and there are many full and partial scholarships available.
Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the
program fills. Financial aid applications are due by June 8
(but we will consider late requests, subject to the availability
of funds.) The application is available on the website.
Questions can be directed to the project coordinators at artemis-project@cs.umbc.edu. or Dr. Marie desJardins, mariedj@cs.umbc.edu.
CWIT Scholars and Affiliates are also encouraged to share information below and attached flyer about the camp with former high school and middle school teachers and with any rising 9th grade girls that they know who might be interested in learning more about computing!
Every so often, we highlight the importance of student scholarships by introducing you to the very students they help to succeed. Today, we’re speaking with Liz Winters, a senior psychology major who is also a Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation Scholarship recipient. This scholarship is given to returning female students over the age of 25. If you’re interested in learning more about the Returning Women’s meetings or scholarships, contact the Women’s Center at womens.center@umbc.edu.
Name: Liz Winters, married mom of 2
Grad Year/Major: Psychology major, senior year
Affiliations: Student Veteran’s Association, Health Leads, Psi Chi
Q: Tell us about yourself!
A: I’m Liz Winters, a senior Psychology major. This year I have been part of the Student Veteran’s Association, Health Leads and Psi Chi, among other organizations. I’m a married mom of 2, a veteran, a triathlete, and an aspiring marathoner. I plan on being a nurse one day soon.
Q: What benefits have you experienced as a Newcombe Scholar?
A: Being a Newcombe Scholar has helped me to foster a lasting connection to the Women’s Center community that helps support me in academic and personal growth endeavors. My support network includes grad students, undergrads, and staff & faculty mentors in all reaches of campus. The group is comprised of people, like me, who want to succeed and finish strong in various areas of academic study. The tone is overwhelmingly positive, even when we are in the thick of deadlines and coursework pressures. These benefits are invaluable to making my UMBC experience overwhelmingly positive.
Q: What do you wish traditional students knew about being a non-traditional student?
A: We have more in common than you might think. We may be older, but we can certainly relate to the daily life of a traditional student. We feel the pressure to do well in classes. We wish we had more time to participate in all of the fun campus activities. We want to get out there and enjoy the nice weather. We want to relax and enjoy the weekend, too. Don’t let our age be the thing that stops you from getting to know us.
Q: What do you wish the University and professors knew about being a non-traditional student?
A: We don’t expect preferential treatment based on age or previous professional experience. We may often keep our non-traditional status to ourselves to keep the playing field even. When we chat with you after class about things we might have in common, we are doing it to make connections, not gain favor. Always give us the opportunity to rise to the challenge. Please be willing to mentor and teach us knowing that we will put forth our best effort in order to be better in our studies.
Q: What is one piece of advice you would offer to new non-traditional students at UMBC?
A: Make UMBC your own, don’t be a bystander. Get to know the other students in your classes. They are very smart and talented in the subject matter of your courses, even if they lack confidence sometimes. Get involved on campus in academic organizations and clubs, these connections will be valuable to getting you through to graduation. If you are a parent, your time spent volunteering on campus will be the one of the best examples you can give your kids that will make them see college as something they want to do, too. Have fun, and try not to stress out! When you do get overwhelmed stop by the Women’s Center for some tea or yoga, or go to the RAC and do some ZUMBA- do anything! Just be active and get involved!
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The last two articles have dealt with black and gray hat techniques employed by some search engine optimization specialists, and how these can affect rankings in Google. This time we’ll be examining white hat techniques and why they are the safest and most ‘ethical’ methods to use.
White hat describes techniques used for SEO which are fully approved by search engines and take quite a lot of skill to carry out. Whilst the same can be said for some black and gray techniques, these carry the risk that a site will be penalized by the search engine for breaking the rules.
Whilst everyone agrees that black hat SEO is unethical, bringing the quality of the internet as a whole down, the lines are more blurred with gray hat as some SEO professionals will get away with using these to some extent.
However, it’s not really worth the risk using black or gray, as if a site is penalized it pretty much disappears from the SERPs. A site will recover, eventually, but by that time enough damage may have been done to make a business fail.
Apart from what is mentioned above, sites which stick to using white hat will fare better in the long term. Whilst it will take longer for a site to rank than using other, less ethical techniques, once ranked, a site will gain long lasting results when it does.
White hat SEO includes:
Create strong, brief, unique titles and tags, and descriptions that accurately describe the site’s content. Also try to use different descriptions for each page so that each snippet that the spiders crawl has something different and relevant to say about the page content.
Readability is all about keeping wording and paragraphs simple and short. The Flesch-Kincaid readability score can be enabled when using Word, or a good plugin for Office can be found at Grammarly. Basically, it’s a formula which looks at the length of sentences, paragraphs and words, as well as how many syllables words contain.
White space should be left in between paragraphs so the reader can scan easily, as people tend to read differently online and will take in information in bite-sized chunks.
When looking at site structure, ensure there is a robots.txt file and an XML site map and build the site with a logical, easy to follow and organized structure.
Looking at competitor strategies can be rewarding as it affords a chance to see what kind of content is popular within an industry and how a content strategy can be employed to have the best chance of back links. This is of course just link baiting, under a different name, but a term that is used so often instead of link baiting that it’s worth giving some space to explain further.
For keyword performance, analyzing keywords and pages is vital, especially if competitors are ranking higher. The idea is to get on the first page of the search engine as 90% of all clicks come from the first page of result.
It’s not always necessary to do this via Google Analytics, although this is an excellent resource which should be used by every site. Software can be purchased that automates the process. This allows a SEO professional to study the backlink profiles of competitors in order to see which links are classed as high value by the search engine.
It’s also necessary to keep a sharp eye on links site wide to check that they haven’t degraded. This could mean a site has been taken down and so therefore a link is broken and should be removed. It is also useful for checking the performance of backlinks.
Anchor text is something that needs to be considered carefully too and should contain target keywords, where possible. This is an ongoing process and should be carried out on at least a monthly basis. Again, it’s possible to purchase software for this, but it’s better to employ a reputable SEO professional or agency.
White hat SEO is undoubtedly the most time-consuming and skilled technique which doesn’t promise to deliver results as quickly as the other, less ethical, practices. However, once a good rank is established, it’s likely to remain that way, so white hat is the most sustainable.
Links and keywords are still probably the most useful aspect to white hat SEO, but this does take time and skill and as such, it’s often tempting to take the easy way out and use black or gray hat. However, in the long term, while a site may initially be well ranked, this isn’t likely to last and it’s possible that a site may be penalized and will never recover.
A recent high profile example of this is Interflora. Not only have Google pulled the ranking of the flower supplier for their own brand name, but they have also taken out key terms such as ‘flowers’, ‘flower delivery’ and ‘florists’, to name a few. This is thought to have come about due to the company purchasing backlinks, as the company had been asking for paid-for in-story links to be removed by outside sites in the run-up to the penalization.
However, some industry insiders believe the problem was deeper rooted than that and the company asked for the links to be removed to “throw Google off the scent”.
“With the penalty that Interflora has come under this week, seeing them lose their top ranking position for their own brand name, as well as the main traffic terms in the flower sector, just shows no one, not even the biggest brands can escape Google’s penalties,” David Naylor, CEO of Bronco Internet, who has experience of working with Google, told The Drum, “Whatever SEO techniques they have used to gain rankings, does it give Google users a good experience when brands are not ranking for their own name. As we have seen previously big brands don’t remain penalized for long so they may appear at the top again in the next few weeks as Google needs them in their index.”
Whilst a brand as big as Interflora will more than likely survive, it does go some way to illustrating that even the biggest companies are not immune to penalization. The florist has shops all over the world and managed perfectly well before the rise of the internet.
However, a smaller company might not survive a SEO penalization such as this and as such, it’s best to avoid using shady practices. Online marketing and SEO is a big area and there are overall strategies to ensure a site’s success. Along with white hat, social media has become a large part of online marketing too and should be incorporated into any plan.
It’s important to plan and research effectively as a part of any marketing campaign, both online and off. With good planning, a solid strategy and skilled SEO professionals, there should be no need to employ black and gray tactics. This will also ensure that the web is high quality and the best resource it can be for everyone.
What tips would you add for white hat SEO? Do you pay attention to SEO at all? Let us know in the comments.
Featured image/thumbnail, search image via Shutterstock.
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