Results from the Spring Research Symposium 2008
With the Spring comes another successful VTURCS Spring Research Symposium. This year we celebrated our 8th annual symposium. We surpased our 200th student and our 100th project "served." VTURCS has become an institution of the CS department. On average we have 26 students per year participating in the research symposium. Interest continues to be high, particularly from Industry. This year we had more industry participants than students, an indication of the high level of interest and demand for CS graduates. Overall, another successful day.
The Spring Research Symposium 2008 took place on April 24th with 12 students presenting 11 different projects. Faculty members Dr. Anil Vullikanti, Dr. Doug Bowman, Dr. Eli Tilevich, and Dr. Nick Polys selected the Faculty Choice winners. Representatives from the department's Computer Science Resources Consortium (CSRC) -- Cisco, IBM, The Vanguard Group, MicroStrategy, CGI, Mailtrust, and Meridium Inc. -- were present and helped us select the winners of the Industry Choice awards. Prizes and awards were generously donated by Cisco, IBM, The Vangard Group, MicroStrategy, Lockheed Martin, Google, and AFLAC.
The results are shown in the Spring 08 Results page. If you missed the symposium, the abstracts are available online for your benefit. Keep an eye on this space for news of our Fall Project Fair.
Welcome to the VTURCS Homepage!
The purpose of the VTURCS program is to encourage Computer Science undergraduate students to become involved in research. The faculty and students involved in VTURCS agree that research is one of the most valuable programs that a student can participate in during their undergraduate education. That's why VTURCS provides a web database where faculty can list their research opportunities so that interested students can find them. We also run an annual Fall Project Fair where various research groups come to talk about opportunities in their area. In the Spring, student researchers present their research to other students, faculty, interested members of the public, and a distinguished panel of judges that includes professors as well as representatives from industry leaders.
Why get involved?
Students join VTURCS for a variety of reasons:
- Seeking something more challenging than regular classes.
- Wanting to work on a project that's in-depth enough to require more than just a semester.
- Thinking about graduate school and wanting to test the waters.
- Looking for a more personal interaction with faculty beyond regular classroom settings.
Participating in research shows you go above and beyond the normal curriculum for undergraduate studies. Whether you're thinking about graduate school or a job after college, you will benefit from VTURCS. It shows you're someone who fits into the above categories and has experience working on real projects that make contributions to the world of computer science. Students who have worked on undergraduate research at Virginia Tech have gone on to work at top companies like Microsoft and Lockheed Martin, and to school at top graduate institutions like UNC, CMU, Penn State, and, of course, Virginia Tech!