Penn College Students Take Part in Programming Competition

Published 05.26.2006

News
Information Technology
Student News
Business, Arts & Sciences

A three-member team of Pennsylvania College of Technology students recently participated in a programming competition held in conjunction with the 11th annual Northeastern Conference of the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges.

James R. Carpenter, of Williamsport; Anthony A. Garritano, Altoona; and Andrew P. Keyes, of West Chester; competed in the event, which was held April 21-22 at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. Carpenter and Garritano are majoring in computer information technology-internetworking applications development, and Keyes is enrolled in information technology-web and applications development.

In this and past years, Bahram Golshan, associate professor of computer science, has organized and trained teams of Penn College students for the programming competition. Prior commitments prevented his attendance this year, so the students were accompanied by Phillip B. Chambers, assistant professor of computer science.

"In preparation for this year's competition, our students generally convened weekly to practice developing solutions for rather rigorous problems both from past competitions and from faculty, Chambers said.

The students, whose programming language of choice was Java, completed two of their seven problems and finished 11th among 25 teams. The competition was won by Stonehill College in Easton, Mass.

The group also attended several workshops and presentations of papers, including sessions on "The Curse of Monkey Island: Holding the Attention of Students Weaned on Games" and "Teaching Software Development by Example."

The conference brings together faculty, staff and students from academic institutions through the Northeast for exchange of ideas and information concerning undergraduate computing curricula.

For more information about academic majors in Penn College's School of Business and Computer Technologies, send e-mail or visit online .