Summer Practicum In Computer Science

Curriculum

Students will work in teams on a project for a real customer with clear needs. Most of the time will be focused on understanding, designing, coding, testing, and refining solutions for those customer needs. Industry partners will help enrich the experience.

Leadership

Jonathan Senning, Ph.D., and Russ Tuck, Ph.D., both Professors of Computer Science at Gordon College, lead the program. Dr. Senning is an outstanding teacher and expert in scientific computing. Dr. Tuck helped launch Gmail and led several software development teams at Google. The program is roughly modeled on Google’s Engineering Practicum Internships.

Past Years' Projects:

Gordon 360 is a student-focused website that provides easy access to meal plan balance, chapel credits, upcoming events, and the campus directory. It also documents students’ activities, honors, and leadership roles. It was created in the first practicum and improved in each practicum since.  It is entirely student-developed.  

While Gordon 360 has been a consistent part of the practicum's work, there have been additional smaller projects.  One of those is JES4PY, which became an essential tool for teaching CPS 121 Introduction to Programming at Gordon. 

Housing, Food, Worship, and Fun

Students will be housed on campus at Gordon College, with access to a kitchen.  Some team lunches will be provided.  Rides to some local churches are available, and there will be some fun activities. The North Shore is beautiful in the summer, with beaches and rocky coast, parks and ponds, and Boston nearby.