It is essential that students showcase their technical abilities to future employers, in addition to transferable skills from past academic and professional experiences.

Side projects act as a reliable measure for employers to assess technical abilities, time management, enthusiasm, collaboration, and creativity — and more.

In 2021, Penn Engineering Online launched SPARC (Side Projects for Advancement, Refinement, and Collaboration), a summer-long competition designed to help our MCIT Online students take their side projects to the next level.

“My most cherished aspect of the competition was the invaluable opportunity to work on a full-stack project from scratch. It involved an enriching journey of discovering and harnessing various resources, tutorials, and documentation crucial for project development. Additionally, I deeply enjoyed delving into the trending realm of cloud-based, server-less services and actively participating in the implementation.”
Yushan Li
Yushan Li
  • 2023 SPARC Winning Team Member
  • Current MCIT Online Student, Fall 2022 Cohort
“The main challenge was that none of us had experience with AWS before, so we all needed to research and learn from zero about how each building block works, how they connect with each other, and how we could efficiently work with them.”
Vivienne Jing Zhang
Vivienne Jing Zhang
  • 2023 SPARC Winning Team Member
  • Current MCIT Online Student, Fall 2022 Cohort
“SPARC is a full set of software engineering experiences … from familiarizing with existing tools, brainstorming ideas, drawing flowcharts to programming/implementations, QA testings and demonstrations. This enabled me to know behind the scenes [of software engineering].”
Aishan Zhang
Aishan Zhang
  • 2023 SPARC Winning Team Member
  • Current MCIT Online Student, Fall 2022 Cohort

What is SPARC?

MCIT Online students participating in SPARC are able to work in teams of 3 – 4 to exercise their creativity and cooperation while expanding their technical skillset and building a meaningful asset that can be utilized in their job search.

Projects produced during SPARC can take many forms, but all projects should rely on programming and coding skills. Students can propose a website, mobile app, dashboard, database, etc. The best projects allow team members to practice existing skills AND build new skills. Teams will need to utilize productive communication and collaboration throughout the duration of the project.

At the end of the competition, each team must submit a technical design document and a video demo to exemplify the project they developed. Submissions are evaluated by a panel of judges who award prizes to the members of a winning team. This year, prizes include financial compensation to be utilized for professional development opportunities including conference registration and interview training resources.

Who participates in SPARC?

SPARC is overseen by the Career Services team. Penn Engineering Online is proud to offer students the support of a dedicated Professional Development and Networking staff, provide students and alumni with access to resources including virtual career advising, skills development opportunities, networking, virtual career fairs, employer site visits and more.

The SPARC competition is open to students in the MCIT Online program who are actively enrolled in a course(s) during the Spring and / or Summer semesters.

A panel of SPARC judges is selected each year. The 2024 judges will feature Penn Engineering Alumni technologists.

When does SPARC take place?

SPARC is a 12-week competition that kicks off in May and concludes in August.

Why should students participate?

Not only does the SPARC competition provide an opportunity to for students to win financial prizes, but this program provides invaluable potential for skills development and professional development. Regardless of the competition results, participants finish SPARC with a tangible technical project that can be included on their resume to enhance their skills, experience and hire-ability.


Current MCIT Online students looking to enroll in the 2024 SPARC competition can log-in to access registration information through the Student Knowledge Base.


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