MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — Around fifty high school students flocked to WVU this week for the inaugural Governor’s Computer Science Institute to learn and engage in activities that can be considered uncommon to the curriculum in most high schools. These students are working with JAVA, developing video games, building remote control robotics and more.

“I really enjoy computer science and I’ve always wanted to have more of an interest in it,” Evan Mann, participant from Putnam County said. “I’ve always wanted to do robotics and I thought this was a good opportunity to learn more about it.”

  • Students build video game at Governor’s Computer Science Institute 2(WBOY – Image)
  • Governor’s Computer Science Institute (WBOY – Image)
  • Students build robotics at Governor’s Computer Science Institute 3(WBOY – Image)

Officials said that it’s more than a pretty good opportunity.

“It’s a pretty amazing opportunity to be immersed into computer science for a week,” Dr. Erika Klose, Computer Science Coordinator from the West Virginia Department Of Education said. “It’s very different than going to a computer science class. So my hope, is that these students get a really well rounded picture of what it means to be a computer scientist and the many ways it can take them into the future.”

The WVU Center for Excellence in STEM Education is overseeing the program, but is having many different experienced guests speak at the camp. A few of those speakers included; DataRobot GTM Curriculum Director Katherine Kopp, WVU School of Medicine Director of the Bioinformatics Core Gangqing (Michael) Hu, WVU Associate Professor of Business Data Analytics Brad Price.

In turn, officials said that they see this as a way to show students that computer science opportunities are available in West Virginia.

“I think they’ve been able to hear from a lot of people here at WVU and from the community that really shows them that even being a computer scientist is something that they can even do here in West Virginia,” Klose said. “It’s not that they have to leave our state to go use what they are learning and use what they will learn in the future, but they can still do computer science right here.”

The camp can even lead students to explore computer science at West Virginia University in the future.

“I like being around campus,” Mann said. “At WVU, it’s nice, it’s pretty. Everyone is very interested in computer science and it’s nice being around people that have the same interests as you.”