CodeLab: The Beginning of a New Computer Science Community at UC Davis
The four of us — Essam Sleiman, Omid Mogasemi, James Junaidi, and Edward Chew — are all second-year computer science majors. We’ve spent the last year grinding away on our lower division computer science classes at UC Davis, working on coding projects, and enjoying our first year here in the dorms.
There’s no shortage of computer science majors at UC Davis; in fact, the computer science department boasts over 1,200 students. But amidst the giant lecture halls, there was little sense of a tight-knit academic community. And with heavily theoretical coursework, it was easy to get lost navigating real-world applications of our coding knowledge.
We wanted to change that.
First, we went to the drawing board. UC Davis has numerous computer science clubs, that are largely geared towards beginners. We wanted to instead create a place for both the seasoned programmer and the technical novice. Many other organizations were also events based, so pieces of code often didn’t extend past the two hours of a technical workshop. We wanted coders to be able to work on large scale projects they could show off and be proud of.
And so CodeLab, a software development organization at UC Davis, was born.
Developers in CodeLab work in small teams on real-world projects. We have two types of projects: the client projects and the mentored projects. Client team developers work with startups and companies to create software for their businesses. For those with less experience, the mentored project provides an opportunity for developers to work on a project under the guidance of an experienced student.
For Fall 2020, our Client Team will be working with Ambii, a music streaming service for businesses, to create an internal UI to manage their databases. Our Mentored Team will be using React to build the CodeLab website.
This is just the beginning. More important than the code itself, though, is the element of community. We want students to be able to learn new tools and skills from each other, and help one another excel in computer programming. It’s not just about a classroom environment with a student and a teacher, but instead a group of motivated peers working through problems together. We are all so excited to see what CodeLab’s teams will build this quarter, and what CodeLab will build in the years to come.
