NEUMONT'S SUMMER SCHOLARS PROGRAM

SUMMER SCHOLARS PROGRAM

The summer of 2019 was a busy one for Neumont as we hosted our first Summer Scholars program. We invited local Utah high school students to participate in a free five-week computer science course at our downtown Salt Lake City campus.

Summer Scholars courses were taught by two of our senior faculty members–Tim Clark, vice president of academic operations and Benjamin Fletcher, vice president of business operations and information technology. Participants chose a course in either Web Development or Networking. The Web Development course focused on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding languages. The Networking course was designed to introduce students to the basics of IP-based networking and the OSI-TCP/IP models. Additionally, participants were challenged with creating LAN and WAN networks culminating in a re-creation of the internet.

Tim Clark described the reasoning for extending Neumont’s academics beyond just college students. “At Neumont, improving student lives is not limited to our enrolled college students, it also includes high school instructors and students within our own community. Along with supplying volunteer teaching resources at UACTE technical conferences for high school instructors, we made the decision to provide free technical college credit through our Summer Scholars program. We simply want to make the biggest impact we can on Utah high schools by helping instructors teach tech better and help students understand the importance of a degree and career in the field of technology.”

Throughout his teaching experience during Summer Scholars, Benjamin Fletcher continually reinforced to high school students that a career in tech is a possibility. “Helping Utah students understand that technology is an option for them is critical. Too often I hear ‘Computer Science is too hard,’ or ‘I’m not good at math or science, so it’s not an option for me.”’  With the Neumont Summer Scholars program we are dispelling those myths and showing local Utah students they can succeed and thrive in computer science disciplines. These students grew up with computers in their hands from day one, and they are capable of great things if we just show them how and give them the confidence to succeed.”

In the summer of 2020, we will once again host the Summer Scholars program and will continue further educating both Utah high school students and teachers in the field of computer science.