Mapping Education to Career ROI

This past September 26 to 27, student developers, designers, and innovators gathered to journey together over a 24-hour period at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) for hackUMBC 2026. Themed around medieval fantasy, participants geared up to accomplish various quests in tech, drawing attention from all experience levels to build ambitious projects, attend sponsor workshops, and compete for valuable prizes.

DoIT’s Hackathon Track: Navigating the Future: Career Pathways & Degree ROI

Among the weekend’s standout challenges was the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) track, titled “Navigating the Future: Career Pathways & Degree ROI.” The expedition tasked hackers with solving a pivotal question every college student faces: Where will my degree actually take me?

DoIT provided rich, synthetic datasets that consisted of comprehensive alumni industry movements, salary bands, micro-credentials, and course records. Participants were asked to build visual and actionable tools to help students translate their time in the classroom into long-term professional success.

Emerging victorious from the DoIT adventure was Lumen, an intelligent, interactive career companion developed by the dynamic duo of Mahima Poturaju, a UMBC undergraduate Computer Science major, and Suhas Poturaju, an incoming UMBC graduate student specializing in Artificial Intelligence.

Check out the video describing Lumen! 

Connecting the Classroom to the Career

Lumen was created to bridge a common gap in higher education: helping students realize how specific classroom concepts translate directly into workforce value. Instead of offering generic career advice, Lumen functions as a personalized AI advisor that turns a student’s academic goals, personal skills, and coursework into a clear, visual roadmap.

Initially, the duo planned to build a general school productivity app with an integrated AI tutor. However, both felt the concept lacked focus. Everything shifted when they explored the DoIT track and its alumni dataset.

“When we were brainstorming, we wanted to create a productivity app or AI tutor, but we decided that was too broad,” said Mahima. “Discovering the DoIT track gave us the exact framework we needed to narrow down our focus and answer a fundamental question: 'Where will my degree actually take me?'”

For both creators, the problem was deeply personal.

"I am a visual learner, and I have a hard time connecting to material if I don't understand the overarching purpose," Mahima explained. "For example, knowing how specific data structures are applied in real-world projects would have completely transformed how I engaged with my Data Structures class."

Suhas shared a similar realization from his undergraduate studies. “Not understanding how a class ties into a future job is a universal experience,” Suhas noted. “In my Linear Algebra course, I struggled to see the practical point of matrix multiplications. It wasn't until later, when I dove into neural networks and Large Language Models (LLMs), that everything clicked. With Lumen, we wanted students to make those connections in real time rather than years later.” 

Photo: DoIT hackUMBC judges and DoIT Track winners pose for a photo. Left to right: Erica D'Eramo (judge), Gaby Jurado Fuentes (judge), Suhas Poturaju (winner), Tim Champ (judge), Mahima Poturaju (winner), and Ray Soellner (judge). 

Less is More: Overcoming Hackathon Scope Creep

Building a multi-faceted AI platform in just 24 hours is no small feat. For Mahima and Suhas, one of the primary obstacles wasn’t a bug in the code or syntax errors—it was maintaining focus.

“One of our biggest challenges was staying focused on our core goal,” the team shared. “We kept wanting to add more features, which sometimes pulled us away from the purpose of making college and career planning simpler. Along the way, we learned that building a focused product often means knowing what not to build.”

That discipline paid off. Lumen features a clean, intuitive visual experience that allows students to easily digest complex academic and financial pathways without feeling overwhelmed.

Insights from the Judges

Mahima’s and Suhas’s teamwork, creativity, and a clear understanding of the problem they were trying to solve impressed the panel of DoIT judges, which included Tim Champ, Ray Soellner, Erica D’Eramo, and Gaby Jurado Fuentes. Lumen delivers a clean, visual roadmap that maps granular academic concepts, for example, their connection and use of linear algebra directly to industry roles. They also highlighted the positive financial impacts of micro-credentials and extracurricular experiences.

“It wasn't about graduating; it's about building the skills to be successful once you graduate.” ~ Ray Soellner

“This answers the question every student asks themselves. "What will I use this for?" when studying course concepts.” ~ Gaby Jurado Fuentes

Looking Ahead

With a victory under their belts, the team is far from finished with Lumen. Moving forward, Mahima and Suhas plan to continue their hackathon adventures. 

Mahima Poturaju plans to graduate from UMBC with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and pursue a career as a software engineer specializing in front-end development, using human-centered design to make complex software intuitive. 

Suhas Poturaju will begin his M.S. in Artificial Intelligence at UMBC in Spring 2027. He aims to conduct research and development in frontier LLMs and physical AI, focusing on world models that allow autonomous agents to safely learn and make decisions in real-world environments.

Learn more about the 2026 hackUMBC in UMBC’s News & Magazine article, “Inside hackUMBC 2026: 450+ students, 24 hours, countless ideas”.

The first draft of the above announcement was generated using AI and edited by the Division of Information Technology Communications and IT teams.