Teamwork Develops Programming Skills

by Orie Achonwa

Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes the teamwork of the faculty and staff of Baylor's Department of Computer Science to prepare students to be competitive in the computer science field. The department does this by providing resources and offering courses that allow students to mature their computer science interests.

"I've been programming since I was 8 years old, but I didn't start doing anything serious until college," Axtell sophomore Mitchell Mebane said. "Having people like Assistant Professor of Computer Science Greg Hamerly and Associate Professor David Sturgill around is beneficial for our success in the program because they advise and direct students to the right track without giving away the answer."

One course that helps students develop their computer programming skills is the Competitive Learning class taught by Hamerly and Sturgill. The class teaches students the algorithms and problem solving skills needed in computer programming.

In the class, Sturgill and Hamerly make themselves available to the students as they lecture on topics like Dynamic Programming and Computational Geometry.

The class format allows students to help each other solve problems and learn the material. Sturgill instructs students to think through the problem individually and to come up with an idea for solving the problem as a team before it's talked about as a class. Through this process, students' communication skills, critical thinking abilities, computer science competencies and social interactions skills are tested as they try to reach an agreement on how to tackle their assignments.

Preparing students for the competition isn't the only objective for the class.

"What I like best about the Competitive Learning class is its laid back atmosphere and it's not super-intensive training," Mebane said. "The only difference between the weeks before the competition and the rest of the semester is that we stayed in the same group that we will be competing in to get to know each other better."

Also, Sturgill and Hamerly simulate the classroom to reflect the real-life working conditions of computer programmers. By dividing the students into groups and setting deadlines for completing assignments, students get a sense of the complexity of computer science work and the time constraints that programmers face in the field.

But the department's dedication to the students' doesn't stop there. Faculty and staff work together to provide the students with the opportunities to test their programming skills against future colleagues by encouraging them to participate in programming competitions.

Baylor's School of Engineering and Computer Science hosted the 30th annual Association of Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals in San Antonio in April, 2006. Sturgill and Hamerly organized and judged the local programming contest on campus in late August.

In November, the department joined six other sites to host the regional programming competition for the southwest region. Rice, Texas A&M, University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas Pan America were some of the universities that came to Baylor to compete in the competition.

There were 67 teams competing in the competition, and one of Baylor's teams, consisting of Waco senior Aaron Kelley, Cypress junior Cory McDonough and Mebane placed 8th in the region.

"There was a difference of about seven minutes, and they could have come in 7th," Hamerly said. "They were the only team in the top 10 that didn't make an incorrect submission."

In the regional competition, the students had five hours to answer problems, such as writing a program to get out of a maze and creating a program that makes a crossword puzzle.

"Compared to the local competition held in late August, these problems were much more difficult to solve," Hamerly said. "Creating a program to make a crossword puzzle was the most difficult."

Once again, Hamerly and Sturgill provided the students with an additional opportunity to challenge their programming skills by hosting a local competition earlier this spring. Mebane, Amarillo sophomore Bret Phillips and junior Bobby Carroll were the winners of this competition and they collectively won a computer, a $50 gift certificate, books, t-shirts and dinner.

The faculty and staff have been working just as hard as the students too. Dean Kelley and other faculty, staff, and students have supported the programmers by assisting and volunteering in the competitions. Computer Systems Manager Patrick Hynan and Computer Systems Assistant Dina Bailey prepared computers for the regional competition by installing the program that allowed the students to submit their results to the main site at Louisiana State University for judging.

"The main purpose of participating in the programming competitions and taking the computer science classes is that it prepares you for the field," McDonough said. "The department does a good job of providing us with the software and material that we need to stay current and competitive."

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