Programming Club to host fourth annual mobiLEHIGH

The programming club is hosting its fourth annual mobiLEHIGH mobile game programming competition in April, and is anticipating representatives from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Lutron and Yahoo.

To assist in networking efforts with these companies, the club provides students with the opportunity to be creative by combining their studies with digital media entertainment.

“Video games are something that everybody has experience with,” programming chair Michael Green, ’16, said. “If you’re willing to step outside of your comfort zone and actually try to make one, you’ll learn a lot of stuff that you probably would not have learned before.”

The group aims to help members learn outside of the classroom and build a community of programmers at Lehigh. Throughout the semester, the club hosts workshops and dinners on campus to feature different companies.

“We kind of help be the middleman between students who want opportunities at these companies,” Green said.

The club holds monthly educational workshops to promote a community of programmers on campus. It seeks to introduce programming to people who are unfamiliar with it and to further educate those who are already somewhat knowledgeable about programming.

Their webpage states that the sessions focus on “web development, game development, and modern software engineering best practices and styles.”

Club president Jon Wu, ’17, further explained that the executive board constructs and presents the workshops to students.

“It’s a good learning experience,” he said.

By hosting different events and dinners with companies, the students gain exposure to this unique corporate career path.

Irene Lau, ’16, is the marketing chair of the club. She said students should work on projects outside of class to boost their resumes and learn more than is possible through lectures and exams.

“I believe it’s almost crucial to work on outside-of-class projects,” Lau said. “Especially because on paper, every student has done the same projects for their classes.”

Lau said posters and advertisements on digital boards in buildings around campus are being put to promote the workshops and the showcase, and they are asking professors to alert their classes about the event.

The club is expecting 15 groups to participate in this year’s showcase. Groups vary from one to four members and consist of people from different areas of expertise, such as students who design, write or market.

Three different awards will be given out this year. The first is Lehigh’s Choice, where students vote on their favorite game; the second is Bethlehem’s Choice, where Broughal middle school students vote on their favorite game and the third is Judge’s Choice, where representatives from distinctive companies, along with one Lehigh professor, vote on their favorite game.

In the past, companies have given out their own awards if they were impressed by a groups work.

Ryan Santos, ’16, is a member of the club and has participated in the competition before. He said it is a good talking point.

He said he has pulled out his phone in interviews and physically played the game he created in front of his interviewer.

“Moving forward, we want to get more participation and more involvement with a lot of our members but also members outside of programming club,” Wu said.

The club as a whole wants to encourage not only computer science majors to join but also artists, other engineers and business students to connect and learn about this project.

“This is not something that you learn in the classroom,” Green said. “It’s basically a jump into some deep water that students aren’t normally able to get their hands into because they don’t know how.”