The Omnibus

Issue date: 4/22/04 Section: News

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The Association of Information Technology Professionals held their ninth annual national competition in Omaha, Neb. April 1-3. Southwest Baptist University senior Josh Bohannon and junior Jeff Reed won second place in the C++ programming contest sponsored by Microsoft. Augustana University took home first and Texas State University placed third.

Media Credit: Ben Cassil Junior Jeff Reed (pictured) along with senior Josh Bohannon, received second place in the C++ programming contest.

The competition was held at the Quest Center in Omaha and the testing was held on two college campuses. The two colleges hosting the competition were Metropolis Community College and Creighton University.

Students from schools such as Purdue University, Illinois State University, Northwestern State University, Widener University and Southwest Technical Institute were among the 762 students competing in the competition.

Among those attending the competition were seniors Bohannon, Lisa Brooks, Jennifer Credille, Aaron Hellen, Kevin McMahon, Jon Middelkamp and Matt Raulsch and juniors Nichole Harlin and Reed. AITP held different competitions dealing with such topics as Web site, Research Paper, Database, Systems Analysis and Computer Programs. The students who competed in the C++ program worked either individually or on a team of two students and were given a problem that dealt with writing a computer program.

The competitors were graded on the following weighted scale: 70 percent for functionality, 20 percent for structure, 20 percent for algorithmic quality, 20 percent for modularity and 10 percent for documentation of the program. Students were given a total of four hours to complete the project.

Not only did this conference include competitions, it also provided guest speakers, Internet café, a scavenger hunt and an awards ceremony.

"The conference sessions scattered throughout the competition were very informative," Bohannon said "The competition itself was pretty good, and it will be interesting to see how we fair in the future."

SBU has competed in other competitions in the past such as the Association of Computing Machinery and the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges.

"With the competition experience we have at SBU, it could have been any of us that won at AITP," Reed said. "It just happened to be our day at AITP."

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