PIT Transfer Fair: How Do You Get Your Ticket Punched?

How often do you think about transferring?  We transfer from the train to the subway, we transfer money from savings to checking, and some of us transfer our affections as often as we change our under-roos!   In a few weeks, the Pennsylvania Institute of Technology will host a Transfer Fair on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.  This, my friends, is something you definitely need to consider if you are planning on pursuing your bachelor’s degree! 

Over the past year, I have seen students transfer to Temple University, Penn State, Neumann, Peirce College, Holy Family University and many, many other schools.  It is a daunting and scary prospect to go from the nice small comfortable pond at PIT and then launch yourself into the big ocean of a university setting.  Some students easily float along at their new school while others flounder and flail (bonus points for alliteration?)!  What makes the difference?  Not to sound like a teacher, but the one thing that will make you successful at a four-year university is doing your homework (insert collective eye roll). 

What degree do you want to earn?  That’s the easy question.  Most of you should have a fairly good idea at this point, but what other issues are important to you?  Here are some of the questions to consider: 

• Are you working towards a scholarship? 
• Do you want to live on campus? 
• Are you ready to make your stage debut in theater or the performing arts? 
• What kind of campus culture do you feel comfortable joining?  Do you want to party hearty or hit the books hard?
• Are you interested in joining a fraternity or sorority?
• Do you want to get experience by doing an internship?
• Do you want to attend a school that is known for its extracurricular sports or do you want to stay far away from football?

If you are planning on your four-year degree or even just wondering if you should consider it, you should attend the PIT TRANSFER FAIR on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m..  We will be hosting admissions representatives from four-year colleges and universities from the tri-state area (and beyond) who can answer the aforementioned questions as well as any others that are rolling around your brain as you play World of Warcraft!  Additionally, PIT’s counselors and PIT’s College Transfer advisor Adina Tayar will be on hand to assist you with any questions you may have.  A financial aid expert will also be there to help you understand how to pay for continuing your education.

Lastly and for some—most importantly—there will be snacks.  So if you are hungry for knowledge and hungry for carbs, you should definitely make a plan to attend.  All you need to bring is an open mind and a willingness to pursue your dreams.  If you have class at this time, please check with your instructor first!

If you cannot make it to the Transfer Fair but would like more information about transferring, please contact Adina Tayar, PIT’s College Transfer Coordinator, at atayar@pit.edu or 610-892-1511.

There’s an App for That at P.I.T.

Most of us have played Angry Birds (even if we don’t quite understand why we have to blow up cute little piggies and monkeys), but how many of you have played Bubble Ball? Like Angry Birds, Bubble Ball is a game that helps develop an understanding of physics and strategy.  Other than the visual differences in the two games, the primary difference is that Angry Birds was developed by seventeen IT professionals from Finland and Bubble Ball was developed by one American teenager.  Bubble Ball has been downloaded an astounding 7 million times since its release last year. 

How can one American teenager compete so handily with a team of app developers?  It’s the wave of the future my friends!  Companies like Google have adopted a concept called “Tangible Computing” which allows people to create computer programs and apps as if they were putting together the pieces of a visual puzzle. 

P.I.T. is incorporating this new programming concept in our Networking and Programming majors into our Fall 2011 semester in a class called Programming Intelligent Devices (SIT246).  By using a Google program called App Inventor, students will create their own apps that will run on Android smart phones and tablets.  The course will show students how to develop their own games as well as productivity tools.  I previewed a couple and one in particular caught my eye.  The name of it is Where’s My Car and it gives us absent-minded professors that chance to find our cars after we have parked at the mall or in the city.  It connects GPS coordinates to our car location, so we can wander blissfully through our day without worrying where we are parked. 

Abbas Abdulmalik, the Program Manager of the IT department at P.I.T., spent the summer working on a variety of his own apps and he is excited to see what his students will generate.  If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Professor Abdulmalik at aabdulmalik@pit.edu!

Take a look at tangible computing!

Khan’s Academy

Khan Academy

YouTube has much more to offer than amateur remakes of Beyonce songs & clips of people making fools of themselves; it’s also a great educational tool! Tune in to the Kahn Academy, a collection of short videos by Sal Kahn explaining various topics in economics, finance & banking, basic mathematics, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, & physics. Kahn definitely knows his stuff; he works as an investment professional in California & holds both a BS & Masters in electrical engineering & computer science, a BS from MIT in mathematics, & an MBA from Harvard Business School.

All those degrees may sound intimidating, but Kahn has a love for teaching & an ability to make complex issues clear to both beginners & more advanced students. Each video shows Kahn’s computer-assisted writings on a “blackboard” while his voice discusses the topic in easy-to-understand terms. In addition to academic subjects, Kahn also discusses related current events in the news, such as the credit crisis & the government bank bailout. All 866 videos can be accessed through Kahn’s website or the Kahn Academy Channel on YouTube. New videos are being added as fast as Kahn can make them, so check back often for more topics.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Khan Academy on YouTube