NJIT welcomed several special guests to campus Aug. 7 for a showcase representing the culmination of the Ras Baraka Coding Institute (BCI) at NJIT, part of the Newark Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). The program offers participants work experience with a summer income while teaching them valuable employment skills. More than 3,000 students take part every year, 40 of whom have spent this summer at the university immersed in either coding or architecture (the latter through NJIT’s Newark Beautification Community Gardens Initiative).

Agrim Sachdeva ’18 received a master’s degree in information systems from NJIT this spring, but he isn’t making a big deal about it. While many recent graduates are thinking about relaxing a little, maybe taking a vacation, Sachdeva is still spending time at NJIT. He’s continuing to work with the university’s information systems department, where he develops software applications that help NJIT run smoothly. Graduation has not caused him to rest on his laurels.

Fresh off the heels of graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, Connor Watson ’18 has an internship lined up crunching data for Quantbot Technologies, a New York City-based private investment firm.

When Chidanand “Cid” Khode ’18 walked across the stage at graduation, he was able to check off a few things on his to-do list: make new friends, graduate with a degree in computer science and find a good job. 

But his biggest accomplishment, he says, was honoring a personal commitment to leave a contribution to the next generation of Highlanders.

Found your own company and be your own boss upon graduation? Unthinkable?

Not any more. 

In this day and age, founding a startup is a viable alternative to working as an employee in an existing company. Especially in the burgeoning tech sector. Especially in the exciting New York region. All you need is a sound business idea, some good technology to support it, a talented team and a small pot of money to get you to that first prototype.

Is it really that easy? Not quite. What does it take? 

Zhi Wei, associate professor of computer science at Ying Wu College of Computing, developed a research proposal that earned him a $50,000 Adobe Digital Experience Research Award. 

The Spring 2018 Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC) Capstone and Real World Connections (RWC) Showcase will take place Wednesday, May 2, in the Campus Center Ballroom 2-5 p.m.

NJIT, one of the nation’s leading public technological universities, will offer a new program this fall that puts students on the fast track to earn a master’s degree in one of six graduate programs offered by the Department of Computer Science at Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC).

Paulette Salomon distinctly recalls April of 2016 as a critical point in her school district’s journey to provide the right digital learning resources and opportunities to the students of East Orange, New Jersey — a district where she has been an educator for 22 years, and has served as the educational technology supervisor to approximately 600 teachers and 10,000 students since 2010.

Prior to taking the game modification development course taught by University Lecturer D.J. Kehoe last spring, computer science major Angela Vitaletti ’18 had never developed or programmed a videogame before.

“I would always bite off more than I could chew, and never finish,” said Vitaletti, who is from Middlesex and transferred to NJIT from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania. “I took game mod as a way to motivate myself because it has real deadlines and projects that D.J. helps make achievable.”