Message From Leadership

From Leadership – Program Manager Dr. Radana Dvorak

Welcome to week three of Spring term. Students, I hope you have settled in your classes and are starting to explore some of the opportunities available for you at the School of Technology and Computing. In the April 8th STC Thursday Byte, Dean Chung wrote about the importance of being proactive, and I want to expand on his challenge. Next week STC is holding a degree program Quarterly Community Building Event (see days and times below); I want to highlight how valuable attending these events can be to your experience at CityU. 

The constructivist theory states that we learn by constructing knowledge rather than passively absorbing information like a sponge. Value is placed on learning through experience and interaction, and this is what STC is trying to achieve not only in the classroom but in the various events we hold regularly. The Community Building Event is for you to meet with your instructors, program managers, and other students and learn from each other. The event is held each term during the fourth week, and we encourage you to attend. In one of my program’s Community Building Events, students came with excellent questions and shared experiences. Several students connected, gave advice, and shared how they overcame some obstacles. What can you gain by coming? Here is just a shortlist: 

  • Meet other students in your school – vital if you are starting your degree program. 
  • Ask your program manager questions, provide feedback and hear about future planning events. 
  • Not sure about what to research for your capstone (you have been hearing ‘start early’), come and get some ideas. 
  • Have a passion and want to see if other students share the same passion? Start a club – a great place to network. 
  • Are you interested in an internship and want to know how that works with your degree program? Ask your Program Manager. 
  • Want to hear what clubs or research is going on? Etc. etc. list goes on. 

Lev Vygotsky’s social constructivist theory goes further and states that all knowledge is co-constructed, and individuals learn from each other by interaction and language – meaning we learn by sharing with others rather than by individual experiences. Taking online classes and working/studying remotely due to the pandemic has isolated us more than ever. We hope that providing opportunities such as the Community Building Event will add to your learning experience at CityU. So, I challenge you, come to your program meeting next week, share, listen, ask questions, and get to know students from your program and your program manager. 

Congratulations

AWS Certification – AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
The STC has supported AWS certifications through either courses or student activities. Thirty-five (35) students in CS 519 Cloud Computing Overview (Winter 2021) received vouchers to take the AWS certificate exam. As of today, two students passed the exam. Among them, Kip Tatum shared the good news. Congratulations! As of today, six (6) students passed the certification exams. If you want to share your good news, please contact the course TA, Kim Nguyen. 

Events

  • STC Quarterly Community Building Event

STC will hold Quarterly Community Building Event for each program in the next week. All STC students are welcome to join. 
Program Event Time:
1. MSCS – April 21st (Wed) 4:oo pm – 5:00 pm (PDT) LINK
April 26th, 2021
1. MSCY – 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm (PDT) LINK
2. BSIS – 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm (PDT) LINK
3. DIT – 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm (PDT) LINK

April 27th, 2021
1. MSDS – 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm (PDT) LINK
2. BSIT – 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm (PDT) LINK
3. BSCY – 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm (PDT) LINK

April 28th, 2021
1. BSAPC – 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm (PDT) LINK
2. BSDS – 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm (PDT) LINK

  • STC Student Clubs Meeting

The Tech Group and the Cybersecurity Club will meet Thursdays from 4 pm to 5 pm (PDT) via Teams: STC Student Clubs & Research Groups Weekly Meeting – Spring Quarter. For students or faculty who would like to present, choose a date and upload your presentation HERE

  • STC Cybersecurity Club

The STC Cybersecurity Club, a Byte of Cyber, is revising the club offerings to support the student journey to become a cyber savvy professionalThe Cyber Club is open to all CityU students and alumni. The next meeting of the Byte of Cyber will be Thursday, May 6th, 5:30 –6:30 P.M. PDT. Complete this survey. 

This Week in Tech History April 18th - 24th

Researchers run the first Fortran Program on April 19th, 1957 

Wikipedia.org

Coders’, a term used for Programmers in 50’ and 60’s ran the first Fortran program. Fortran stands for “FORmula TRANslator” and enables coders to work in a high-level language completely simplifying program writing. Fortran was developed by John Backus and IBM for scientific and engineering applications. It quickly dominated scientific computing and due to the huge legacy power, there are systems still running on it today.  

Career Tip of the Week

Top types of networking bloopers to avoid (part II)

JobSearchMaster.com

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Tech Humor

CloudTweak.com
CloudTweak.com