The Third annual Behrend Local Hack Day

Please see the message from Aiden Chiavatti, President of Behrend ACM for the local Hackathon!

Hello all,

This weekend we will be hosting our third annual Behrend Local Hack Day.  It will begin on Saturday December 2nd at 9:00am in Burke 001, and will run for 12 hours, ending at 9:00pm. For anyone interested in attending (Behrend students/faculty only), be sure to sign up at https://hackday.mlh.io/localhackday-57df. This is a great opportunity for students to work on whatever interests them, without the pressure of a large hackathon. We encourage all programming students to attend, whether you are a seasoned hacker looking to make something amazing, or if you simply want to hang out and work on homework together.

We will be serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as handing out some swag (stickers, pens, domains etc). You can find a schedule for the event in the link above. We also have a message from one of our sponsors:

The .tech squad is offering a FREE .tech domain and the chance to win the .tech Category Prize – $150 Amazon Voucher! Cool, eh? Find out how – bit.ly/2hWYmP7
See you on Saturday,
Aiden Chiavatti
President of Behrend ACM

Our Students Rock in the HackPSU!

On November 4th, over 60+ Behrend students competed against nearly 600 students in HackPSU Fall 2017. This is the highest Behrend turnout we have seen in recent years, with over 4 times as many participants as last year!
The Behrend students showed off their technical prowess with many interesting and original projects, with four groups winning a total of five prizes:
(* denotes non-Behrend teammates)
Project: Krypt
Challenges Won: 3rd place overall HackPSU Fall 2017
Team Members:
Nick Brougher
*Keegan Harris
*Kyle Spencer
*Rachel Cooper
Project: EZ-park
Challenges Won: Winner of GM Challenge, 3rd place Blackboard Challenge
Team Members:
Brandon Bench
Hozaifa Abdalla
Daniel Lopez
Fernando Carrillo
Dustin Reimold
Project: DynAdvisor
Challenges Won: 1st place Winner of IBM Watson Challenge
Team Members:
Jacob Davis
Ali Malik
Alakh Naik
Austin Higgins
Project: TradeOff
Challenges Won: Winner of BNY Mellon Challenge
Team Members:
Conrad Weiser
Ryan Seipp
Dan Kovalevich
*Matt Kerner
Click the links above to see more info about each project. You can also browse other projects which were not winners, as there were a lot of interesting ideas this weekend!
Thank you for everyone’s support of this event, and hopefully we will all be back to compete again in the Spring!
Aiden Chiavatti
President of Behrend ACM
P.S. Special thanks  goes to following:
The EdTech Network at University Park connected us with a NYC based AI company IPSoft to have sponsored us coach bus for the trip.
Tom Rossi, CSSE faculty member went with students to this event.
Behrend ACM student chapter president Aiden Chiavatti helped to organize our students for this competition.
Dr. Su

Apply for the PSGC Undergraduate Scholarship Program

The Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium (PSGC) is seeking outstanding undergraduate students majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) fields to apply for the PSGC Undergraduate Scholarship Program. This competitive scholarship of $4,000 will be awarded for the 2018-19 academic year to full-time rising juniors or seniors attending an accredited Pennsylvania college or university.

The application can be found here, as well as more information about our scholarship program and eligibility. The application will open November 1, 2017 and the deadline is February 1, 2018.

Academic Advising Notes for Computer Science and Software Engineering

Computer Science Program

  1. Computing Elective course lists (need 9 credits):
    — Any 312-400 level CMPSC course not already required for the major
    — Any CMPEN, or SWENG courses.
  2. 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.
  • Academic Recommended Plan for computer science at Behrend:
    http://rap.psu.edu/computer-science-cmpbd
  • Annotated program curriculum for degree audit:
    CMPBD_Degree_ Audit.
  • Academic Recommended Plan for transferred to University Park:
    https://rap.psu.edu/computer-science-erie
  • Notes:
    (1) Computer Science students need to take CMPSC221 not SWENG311.
    (2) Computer Science students have to take CMPSC431 as the requirement course
    (3) Computer Science students do not take CMPSC471 which is not offered at Behrend. Instead, CMPSC421 is required by all computer science majors.

Software Engineering Program:

  1. 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
  2. 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
  • Academic Recommended Plan for software engineering:
    https://rap.psu.edu/software-engineering-se-bd
  • Annotated program curriculum for degree audit
    SEBD_Degree_Audit_
  • Notes:
    (1). Software Engineering can take either MIS 336 or CMPSC431 as the major required course at this moment. If a student takes MIS 336 first and then CMPSC431, the latter one is considered as the computing or technical elective.
    (2). CMPEN270 = CMPEN271 + CMPEN275
    (3). Software Engineering students need to take SWENG311, not CMPSC221.