A Scholarship Opportunity

Bill & Diane Barley and Sam & Valerie Krauss and John J. Cahir
2017-2018 Achievers’ Scholarships

The Office of Undergraduate Education will award eleven students the Bill and Diane Barley and Sam and Valerie Krauss and John J. Cahir Achievers’ Scholarships in the amount of $1,000 each for the 2017-2018 academic year. Units are eligible on a rotating basis to select one scholarship recipient. Those eligible for 2017-18 are:

College of Earth and Mineral Sciences
College of Arts and Architecture
Smeal College of Business
College of Engineering
College of the Liberal Arts
College of Nursing
Penn State Abington
Penn State Altoona
Penn State Beaver
Penn State Berks
Penn State Behrend

Each college and campus should identify one student. Recipients must be full-time students and may be an incoming or current first-year student or current sophomore. Selection of recipients must be based upon the following guidelines:
1. Evidence of leadership engagement in high school and college
2. Service to others
3. Employment experience, presumably contributing toward the costs of education
4. Academic achievement, considered in the context of well-rounded civic leadership and work engagement leading to an earned or predicted GPA within the range of 2.5 and 3.2

Note that the donors’ intent is to recognize students whose contributions to others, community leadership, and employment towards their own education are considered elements of a well rounded individual and just as important as GPA, hence the focus on students who are not in the first tier of academic performance and therefore may not be eligible for other awards.

Selections must be made and submitted by Friday, May 19, 2017.

CSSE students, please contact CSSE faculty for the application.

Our students ROCK in Hackathons

Our ACM chapter students had participated in two hackathons that were organized by RIT in February. They did really well. Below is a summery of their accomplishments.

1. Brickhack at RIT February 11-12 (https://brickhack.io/)

Won: #HackHarassment

They developed Omniclad, it is designed to be a chat bot/moderator running in Discord to create streamlined communication and to eliminate bullying and harassment. Omniclad uses Microsoft Cognitive Services API to power the functionalities it was created for. It uses the Microsoft Azure services provided to function with machine learning, integrates translating of various world languages straight into Discord, and the filter feature screens for racy, adult, NSFW content and removes such content.

2. WiCHacks (Women in Computing Hackathon) at RIT Feb 25-26 (http://wic-hacks.rit.edu/)

Members who attended: Rachel Rattay, Allison Steinmetz, Katie Chuzie, Karlene McCleary, Alexa Foo

Won: Most Novel (each member received an Amazon Echo Dot and MLH medal) and Best Domain Name (each member received a domain.com gift bag)

They developed “KickHerassment” a workplace harassment simulation to bring awareness to types of harassment that have been recently brought into light at companies such as Uber

Picture: The team alongside the CEO and Cofounder of the Major League of Hacking who presented us our awards

A few important notes on the courses for Computer Science major and Software Engineering major

1. CMPSC221 and SWENG311 have not been combined to offer since last semester. Hence, Computer Science major students need to take CMPSC221 and Software Engineering major students need to take SWENG311. Each student can take only one of these two courses.

2. SE students can take either MIS 336 or CMPSC431 as the major required course. If a student takes MIS 336 first and then CMPSC431, the latter one is considered as the computing or technical elective. CS students have to take CMPSC431 as the requirement course

3. CMPEN270 = CMPEN271 + CMPEN275

4. Computer Science students do not take CMPSC471 which is not offered at Behrend. Instead, CMPSC421 is required by all computer science majors.

5. Here are the elective course lists for CS and SE majors:

For Computer Science major:

Computing Elective (need 9 credits):
— Any 312-400 level CMPSC course not already required for the major
— Any CMPEN, or SWENG courses.

Supporting and Related Areas (need 6 credits):

— Any 300 and 400-level courses in CMPSC (including CMPSC 494 – Research, CMPSC 495 – Internship, and/or CMPSC 496 – Independent Study),
— Any 300 and 400-level courses in GAME, MIS, MATH, STAT, BIOL, CHEM, PHYS, ACCTG, ECON, FIN, PSYCH, and ROTC.

For more details, click: CMPBD_Degree_ Audit.

This is the academic recommended plan for computer science at Behrend:
http://rap.psu.edu/computer-science-cmpbd

Here is the academic recommended plan for transferred to University Park:
https://rap.psu.edu/computer-science-erie

For Software Engineering major: 

Primary Technical Electives (need 6 credits)

— Any 300-400 level EE course
— Any 300-400 level CMPEN course not already required for the major
— Any 400 level CMPSC course not already required for the major
— Any 300-400 level SWENG course not already required for the major
— GAME 450, GAME 480 GAME

Secondary Technical Electives (need 3 credits)

— SWENG 395+495 Internship
— MIS 430,  MIS 435 , MIS 445,  MIS 470,  MGMT 409,  PSYCH 444,  ECON 481,  ECON 485,
— MATH 455,  MATH 456
— ENTR 430

For more details, click:SEBD_Degree_Audit_

This is the academic recommended plan for software engineering:
https://rap.psu.edu/software-engineering-se-bd

Students at the Game Developers Conference 2017

Eight engineering students went to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco from February 27 to March 3. The Game Developers Conference is the world’s largest professional interactive games and virtual reality event attracting over 27,000 attendees a year. The students are enrolled in the course GAME 495 and are working towards a minor in Game Development at Behrend.

Undergraduate Student Academic Year Grants (Electronic Submission Procedure)

CSSE students, please notify this opportunity and talk to us about it. – Dr. Su

Proposals for the Penn State Behrend Undergraduate Student Summer Research Fellowship are due electronically on Friday, April 14, 2017. Grants up to $1,000 are available for Penn State Behrend majors.  

Proposals must be uploaded at https://secure2.bd.psu.edu/index.php?q=student-grant using the Word document template.  Links to the proposal requirements and the proposal template can be found on that page.  Proposals may be uploaded by the faculty mentor or the student.  

Erie Hack – Water Innovation Competition

 

Kick-off party for this at Radius CoWork today at 5pm for the Erie Hack water innovation competition

Look at this:   

http://eriehack.io/challenge/

  • Summary: Teams compete with their solutions to the water related challenges listed in the website above.
  • The timeline is short, but they don’t expect perfection. They’re offering incubation as a part of the rewards, so further development and implementation can proceed.
  • Five people on a team. No age/student/professional restrictions.
  • Innovation Commons will offer itself as a resource for the competing Erie teams and as an incubation site for the Behrend teams as they develop their plans.
  • Wide range of skill sets are relevant.
  • Prizes are substantial.

A kick-off party for this event (http://eriehack.io/challenge/) is coming up on March 1st at Radius CoWork, downtown, see below. Teams do NOT need to be formed to attend. Part of the purpose of the kick-off is team building. I will be there. If they haven’t already heard about this, I would expect some students and professors to be interested given the wide scope of the challenges. Innovation Commons can serve as a location for any Behrend teams to work on their plans while they compete, and the Commons will be offering itself as a resource for any Erie teams that are in need of its capabilities. The kick-off is not required for competition, but I recommend interested students/professors/whoever to go. There’s really a play for a large number of skill sets here.