Brightly vibrant video games, touchscreen vending machines, EMG readout devices, and self-driving robots – December’s Computer Science and Engineering Jamboree demonstrated a small selection of the wide range of interests, expertise, and backgrounds of students from various tech-related courses across Salt Lake Community College.
The event, which showcased software and hardware projects for current, future, and past students, is a platform for celebrating successes, sharing expertise, inspiring future enrollees, and – most importantly – helping students develop academic and professional networks. Each of these priorities were highlighted in a survey that prompts attendees to engage in three ways:
- Describing and analyzing software and hardware projects,
- Gleaning details about tech or future coursework from other students, and
- Connecting with representatives from four-year schools and trade organizations about transfer and professional opportunities.
For Hau Moy Kwan, assistant professor in Computer Science and recipient of a 2022 Teaching Excellence Award, former SLCC students who have transferred to four-year institutions and returned to the Jamboree to showcase their current work check all three boxes.
“We invite alumni who have transferred,” she explained, “and just bring it back home, you know? They showcase their projects that they have built at another university.”
She had two returning students at the Jamboree, one from Weber State University and one from the University of Utah. These alumni students help every SLCC attendee – from the beginning students to the advanced students presenting their work – visualize a pathway to transfer to a four-year program.
“It’s very important to have somebody to guide you to the next step,” she said.
Four representatives from the University of Utah were on hand to do just that. They were officially identifiable by their yellow lanyards, but the University livery, red tablecloths, and collection of U-branded swag and ephemera on display were the real giveaways.
“While I think SLCC and the University of Utah have a really great relationship, there’s a lot of information and there’re a lot of roadblocks and barriers to navigate,” said Ben Dahn, who was representing the U’s Mechanical Engineering department.
Lexi Crabb, representing the dean’s office of the U’s Price College of Engineering, added that one of the biggest roadblocks students encounter is a simple one, if you have the expertise to address it: Which credits transfer?
According to Crabb, failing to answer that question can result in redundancies and wasted credit hours. To avoid that, she emphasized the importance of connecting with expert transfer resources as early as possible – resources that are available to all SLCC students through the Transfer Center, which offers in-person consultations on the Taylorsville Redwood Campus or online appointments for students across the SLCC ecosystem.
That long-term planning aspect is the ultimate benefit of the Jamboree’s focus on networking, according to Professor Margarethe Posch, coordinator of the Computer Science program and the Jamboree’s organizer. While acknowledging that celebrating students’ efforts is important, she says the Jamboree is more about the future.
“It’s trying to encourage students not to think only about the next test or the next class, but what about three or five years from now? Where could I be and how do I get there?” she said. Conversations with more advanced SLCC students, transfer students, and representatives from four-year programs – Posch sees them all as networking that ladders-up to long-term success.
Edwin Cassidy, the president of SLCC’s Programming Club and a former presenter at the Jamboree, agreed.
“Getting people in the same room and socializing is a big motivation for this,” Cassidy said, citing the Jamboree as an opportunity, “to get people to talk to each other, network, meet new people, and build those soft connections that will help you have career placement later on,” he continued, “because a large part of finding a job or a new opportunity is through those connections.”
“The students are seeing this bigger arch, and think, ‘well if I really apply myself, in a year-and-a-half from now, I could do that,’” Posch explained. “That’s an inspiring aspect.”
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