By now all of you should be comfortably tucked into your classes, and the fall semester (and the weather!) is in full swing. Most likely the heavy-duty projects and exams are still just a mist on the horizon. At this point, the process of settling in, learning your surroundings, and meeting your professors and fellow students are well underway. If all this is not the case, perhaps it may be a good time to check in with your adviser who is hiding in a corner office at the end of a long winding corridor - 259 Avery Hall.
While you are waiting for the semester to ramp up, this may be a good time to explore our student organizations. We now have three with connections to this department.
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) is the premier organization for computing professionals world-wide. Through publications, conferences, journals, dozens of special interest groups (SIGs), and chapters, ACM serves the needs of professionals and represents their
interests to government. Our student chapter organizes LAN parties, tours, code camps, tutorials, a desktop computer competition, and of course the ACM Programming Contests. In addition, it is through ACM that students have the opportunity to represent the students in our
department's governing committees, including Space & Computing Facilities, Curriculum, Academic Integrity & Grading Appeals, Undergraduate Advising, and ACM Programming Contest.
Keeping in mind that all three organizations are only beginning to get off the ground this semester, and are thus unlikely to have fully updated sites and plans, you can find ACM at http://acm.unl.edu or email them at acm.nebraska@gmail.com.
UPE (Upsilon Pi Epsilon) is the honor society for students in computing. UNL has a recently reestablished chapter whose primary self-assigned task each year is a project through which they both showcase their talents and provide a benefit for this institution. In the past couple years they have set up a wiki for our New Student Enrollment process and programmed a note management database for the Arts & Sciences Advising Office to bridge the gap as all student files go paperless. For this work they have been highly praised. UPE students often have pie (aka "pi") at their meetings, and make annual pilgrimages to national conventions in rented school vans.
This is a membership by invitation organization. If you do well and honorably, you may receive an invitation as advance into your third and fourth years! UPE can be found online at http://cse.unl.edu/~upe.
The newest organization is the UNL Game Developers Club. After an initial attempt a couple years ago, a critical mass formed late in the spring semester this year to initiate becoming recognized at UNL. Just
as the summer ended, their constitution was approved and they are underway! Initial organizing meetings are being held alternating Monday and Friday evenings. If developing games, 2D or 3D, using various engines, or simply exploring what it takes to engage in this process piques your interest, check in on them at http://ndev.webs.com.
In addition to the contact information provided above, all recognized student organizations have sites on Blackboard, though these sites are yet to be developed for our groups. If you are interested, let me know
and I can have you added!
So today's bottom line is - Get Active!
until next week,
Chuck R