Tennessee State had the opportunity to host 25 students/faculty from 8 different HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) for this year's Java Boot Camp. It lasted from May 12-19. The event gives students with prior experience in Java programming the opportunity to get their SCJP certification. This year we focused on J2SE 5.0 (planning issues prevented us from do version 6, that's for next year). The event was sponsored by the Technology Transfer Project and IBM. In all we were able to get 7 out of the 25 certified! One student even got 91% percent on the exam! The other six ranged between 69-75%.
Here is the TSU group. Dr. Ali Sekmen, on the left, was the one giving the lecture. I am standing next to him. I was responsible for providing post lecture tutoring. Most nights I didn't get to bed until 3:00am And had to be back up at 6am! The students were diligent in their studies. Dr . Tamara Rogers is standing next to me, followed by Komla Richardson.
Here is Dr. Sekmen giving us the lecture. He teaches our Java Programming course here at TSU. I have to give it to him, he REALLY knows his stuff! We had to be at Holland Hall at 8am to start lecture and didn't get out until 1pm. It may seem like a long time but when you're Sekmen, you can make 5 hours seem like 2. The lecture notes had great examples for the students/faculty to study.
Even eight o'clock in the morning their alert and ready to learn.
After lecture we sat down to bit a bit of lunch and discussed what we learned and to give us some downtime. Notice the lazy looking one on the right in the bottom lunch pic? That's Gheric. He received the highest score out of the boot camp, 91%!
And of course, this wouldn't have been possible without the help from these two fine people, Cassandra Teel, and Ramon Harris. I had to catch them when they looked like they were busy, lol! We really appreciated all the time and effort they put into this along with Dr. Sekmen to make this possible. And thanks for the Swett's! If you're ever in Nashville, TN, be sure to go there at least once. Great Southern food!
Although we would have loved to have everyone who attended to have gotten certified that week, that didn't happen. So we gave them the direction to continue studying and retake the exam within six weeks and report back to us. We provided all the study material they needed and even resources to find additional information. Within six weeks I would love to hear everyone who attended announce they are SCJPs!