All posts by Alexa Heinrich

About Alexa Heinrich

Alexa is the Social Media Manager for St. Petersburg College and works in the SPC Marketing & Strategic Communications Department.

Titan Coding Team Takes Top Spots at Competition

Blurred computer screen showing lines of coding.
Featured, Programming

St. Petersburg College’s Titan Coders did SPC proud on Saturday, April 10, when they competed in the Florida Intercollegiate Computer Programming Competition. The coding event was held virtually via Zoom this year due to the COVID-19 outbreak, allowing students to compete from the comfort of their homes. For many of the students, this was their first time competing in the regional event.

“It was a lot of fun,” said first-time coding competitor, William Helms. “I honestly did not feel very much pressure because I was in a comfortable environment throughout the competition.”

Eight Florida colleges, including SPC, participated in this year’s coding event. In order to be eligible to compete, students needed to have access to a development environment for one of the approved programming languages used during the competition: Java, Python, C, C++, or Visual Basic. Despite the nontraditional contest environment, students still brought their competitive edge to the event and snagged several top spots.

In the Team Awards category, the SPC Titan Coders claimed second place for both the Advanced Gold Group and the Novice Blue Group. Students Gabriel Aldous, Gabriel Schiavo, and Jesse Allen were the top SPC coders for the Advanced Gold Group while Alisha Yabczanka, Tristan Izlar, and William Helms claimed top spots in the Novice Blue Group.

For individual awards, Gabriel Aldous and Alisha Yabczanka—both first-time competitors—claimed third place overall in their respective groups.

“It may seem daunting to think about competing with students from other schools, but it’s important to remember that everyone else has had the same exposure, at least at the blue level,” said Yabczanka. “It’s a way to put together everything you learned from introductory programming in a fun way. Plus, there’s a huge feeling of accomplishment when you finally get a program working after spending time trying to debug it.”

To learn more about SPC’s computer programming and technology degrees, please visit spcollege.edu/degrees.

Is Zoom safe (enough)?

Two women work at a computer.
Cybersecurity, Featured

Dr. John Duff, SPC’s Acting Dean of the College of Computer and Information Technology (CCIT), recently wrote a compelling article on LinkedIn that discusses the safety and security of Zoom.

The video conferencing technology has risen to great prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding millions of users in a very short timeframe. Its security features, or lack thereof, have recently been scrutinized by IT professionals and the mainstream media. Data sharing and “Zoom-bombing” have been hot topics in particular, especially with many minor students using Zoom to learn online during stay-at-home orders and school closures.

Dr. Duff offers a practical analysis of Zoom’s safety and security and also highlights the steps the company has outlined to protect the privacy of its many, many users.