As students prepare to pursue new opportunities with potential employers, is essential to showcase their technical abilities as well as transferable skills from academic and professional experiences.
Side projects act as a reliable measure for employers to assess hard technical skills and soft skills such as time management, effective communication, collaboration, creativity — and more!
To give students an opportunity to develop side project experience, Penn Engineering Online launched SPARC (Side Projects for Advancement, Refinement, and Collaboration) in 2021. SPARC is an annual summer coding competition that provides an opportunity for online graduate students in the MCIT Online (online Master of Computer and Information Technology) degree program to work in teams and utilize their programming skills outside of class to develop unique side projects.
“I joined SPARC to develop my front-end development skills and work on a project that aligns closely with my interests outside of school. I wanted to collaborate with other students for networking purposes while also gaining experience in collaborating with others. SPARC felt like a great opportunity for students like me with less project-based experience hoping to add to our resumes. I think SPARC has broadened my academic journey, exposing me to different technologies that aren’t taught in the curriculum and allowing me to meet other students. Moving forward, I hope SPARC serves as a tangible experience relating to real-world work that I can speak about during interviews.”
“The experience with SPARC has greatly enhanced my software development journey. It has given me many firsts, including my first time developing with Flutter, my first time designing full-stack software, my first time publishing an application to various platforms, and my first time making a video. In the development process, research is the most important skill and teamwork is the best resource. I learned a lot from my teammates, and I am very grateful to complete the project with a full sense of accomplishment. ”
“Participating in SPARC was a great experience. I really enjoyed collaborating with my group members to build something from the ground up. I had no prior experience of web development before starting the project, and I am glad to have had a great group of people to learn the process with as we built a web application together. Although it was a lot of work- learning new languages, implementing various functions and features, and debugging problems- it has been a very fun and meaningful experience. ”
“My experience with SPARC has been awesome. Our group members had excellent communication skills, and we were very excited to get some direct coding experience developing a full-stack application. We also got paired with an awesome mentor who was supportive and engaging. The process was as exciting as it was challenging. ”
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.
Read about the 2024 SPARC competition here.
Current MCIT Online students who are interested in participating in the SPARC competition can log-in to access information through the Student Knowledge Base.