Carey Hackathon Helps Baltimore High Schoolers Bring Out Their Inner Nerd

Main navigation Johns Hopkins Legacy Online applications Faculty Directory Experiential learning Career sources Alumni mentoring program Util Nav CTA CTA Breadcrumb Carey Hackathon Helps Baltimore High Schoolers Bring Out Their ‘Inner Nerd’ Choosing a profession path in life is usually a daunting task for anybody, especially for young people unfamiliar with many of the paths out there. Damien Myers is conversant in the challenges students face. As a trainer at Baltimore’s Western High School, the nation’s oldest all-women public high school, he leads a program for college kids excited about biomedical careers but is continually looking for ways to expose his college students to new profession paths. Myers brought 21 of his college students to the Carey Business School on a recent Saturday for HackCarey, a daylong “hackathon” designed to reveal Baltimore highschool students to know-how careers via hands-on pc coding and app improvement. The highschool college students spent the day learning HTML and JAVA script to construct their own video games. Krystal Ragoonanan, a freshman at Western High, enjoyed the opportunity to write code for the primary time. “It’s really cool. I loved learning a new approach to do issues,” she stated. “I hope it's going to give me an thought of what I want to do with my career.” Shamariah Walker, a junior at Western who has studied computers and robotics in class, was equally enthusiastic. “I loved it lots!” she stated. “I know that I wish to go into the engineering subject and to be a programmer. I’ve been thinking about programming and designing web sites for video video games. The volunteers and mentors have been great right now.” Myers stated the HackCarey occasion provides his college students a novel expertise. “Opportunities like this are priceless to get college students out of the classroom setting, they usually can see how the abilities we're educating them in school are applicable to career choices,” stated Myers. “The hole between industry and teachers may be broad at instances, but I suppose programs like this can bridge that hole.” This is the second 12 months for HackCarey, which was the brainchild ofDan Givol, a 2016 Gl obal MBA candidate on the Carey Business School. He organized the occasion with the help of classmates from the student organizations NetImpact and Innovation Factory. Givol additionally introduced in sponsors, together with Facebook and Deloitte, as well as outdoors volunteers to work with the students from Western High School, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, and Digital Harbor High School. Mindgrub, a Baltimore-primarily based technology innovation agency, brought 12 workers to HackCarey to teach coding to the highschool college students. Andy Felix, of Gensuite, additionally volunteered to work with the students. Facebook donated 20 Macbook computers, which were divided among the many participating colleges. Sa’ad Raouf, Mindgrub’s chief know-how officer, mentioned he hopes the corporate’s contribution will have a long-lasting influence on the students who participated. “I wish to see them take into consideration the future of the world and see nothing but opportunity an d optimism of their lives,” said Raouf. For Givol, HackCarey has been a rewarding expertise. “This was by far my favourite experience at Carey. I’m very pleased with it,” he explained. “Business is about folks. You get to work together with them, and also you get to attach on a private stage. We have 50 people here having fun connecting with their internal nerd.” For Katy Montgomery, associate dean for Student Development at Carey, events like HackCarey clearly align with the Carey School mission of creating students who're both sturdy business leaders and exemplary residents. “This is a great instance of ‘enterprise with humanity in mind’ and what it means to be an exemplary business citizen,” stated Montgomery. “I assume this expertise teaches students management and flexibility in having to put a program collectively. For our students, it’s additionally a possibility for networking.” Givol mentioned he hopes that HackCarey is one thing that can proceed a t Carey after he graduates. “Our objective is that in 2020 we've 250 college students concerned in this program. We are facilitating the infrastructure to try this and collaborating with native folks,” mentioned Givol. Co-organizer Brad Waters, a 2017 GMBA candidate, agrees: “We want this to be an easy means for the Hopkins community and everybody else to plug in to promoting and supporting the development of high school students in Baltimore.” Posted one hundred International Drive