Illinois Tech’s February schedule featured two significant activities to help students practice their technical and professional skills. The sessions were hands-on learning in line with the university’s mission of putting academic concepts into practice through competitive coding practices and career development plans.
Crack the Code: Getting Better at Competitive Programming
On Thursday, February 13, students of computer science attended Herman Hall 002 to participate in Professor Michael Lee’s Crack the Code workshop. Lee coaches Illinois Tech’s ICPC teams. 45 students, ranging from newcomers to grad researchers turned up to work on sharpening their problem-solving skills.
The workshop taught students advanced ways to accelerate code and conquer difficult technical interviews. The workshop focused on these main aspects:
- Simplifying Complex Problems: Exploring patterns in dynamic programming such as different types of knapsack and how to optimize grid paths.
- Runtime vs. Memory Trade-offs: How to optimize algorithms for speed through LeetCode practice problems.
- Whiteboard Coding Hacks: How to code for easy readability when time is short, with live demonstrations of common mistakes.
- Reviewing Test Cases: Backward from problem specifics attempting to reason through tough scenarios in order not to get stuck while debugging.
“ICPC contests test speed and accuracy—skills that translate to technical interviews,” Lee said illustrating anonymous problems from Google and Meta coding rounds. Students worked through timed exercises mimicking ICPC’s team environment. The competition ended with questions about balancing school and contest practice, an interesting topic as Illinois Tech heads into the 2025 ICPC Midwest Regional.
ACM Career Boost Workshop: Building Momentum in Your Work Life
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) club held its yearly career event on Saturday, February 8, at Kaplan TellLabs. More than 60 students joined the morning session to learn practical advice on handling internship and job search cycles. There were three main elements of the workshop: Resume Workshops: Google and Microsoft engineers critiqued resumes line by line focusing on measurable outcomes instead of vague statements.
Elevator Pitch Drills: Students honed 30-second self-presentation drills. They used the application of the STAR approach (Situation, Task, Action Result). Local recruiters provided feedback on these pitches.
LinkedIn Optimization: Demonstrations emphasized how to optimize keywords to match job titles. The demos also touched on how alumni networks can be leveraged.
Bon Appétit hosted a networking lunch. The event offered a chance for students to mingle with panelists. A few of the panelists were Illinois Tech alumni who work at startups like Relativity and Sprout Social.
Both these events reflect the purposeful investments of Illinois Tech in experiential learning. The coding seminar promotes the school’s growth of ICPC placements—Illinois Tech ranked 12th nationwide in 2024—whereas ACM Career’s career program caters to the Elevate Experiences strategy pillar of the 2022–2027 plan.
Coming next:
- LeetCode Marathon: IEEE shall be conducting this day-long activity in enhancing student skill sets pertaining to data structures.
- TechConnect Industry Fair: Over 50 companies, such as Northrop Grumman and Cisco, will be present to seek out new employees.
In-resource students may access workshop slide decks via the ACM GitHub repository or ask for one-on-one mentorship with the Career Services Center.