Student Council Brings ICS Community Together with Social, Educational Activities During ICS Week 2022

The Information and Computer Science Student Council (ICSSC) held ICS Week 2022 from May 9 to May 13, providing a number of activities and workshops hosted by ICS clubs throughout the week.

“A lot of planning and communication [went into creating ICS Week],” says ICSSC Events Chair and second-year computer science major Pham. “We hold weekly committee meetings and during this time we created a budget, layout and schedule for both events.”

After countless preparations, ICS Week began with a roundtable talk with Crowdstrike, a Texas-based cybersecurity company that also has an office in Irvine. Women in Computer Science (WICS) hosted the event on Monday, May 9, to introduce ICS students to careers in cybersecurity.

On Tuesday, Data@UCI hosted a Python for Data Analysis workshop.

Wednesday’s events were game-themed. AI@UCI held an AI-themed jeopardy night with prizes for winners. Students then battled to see who was the fastest typist during ICSSC’s Typing Competition.

“I don’t think that a lot of people realize how much goes on behind an event,” says Pham, who oversaw planning for ICSSC’s Typing Competition and ICS Prom. “It’s a lot of work and oversight to make sure nothing goes wrong, but I think all of that hard work is worth it when the actual event happens and you see the end result!”

The first ICS Week event on Thursday was MAISS’s Introduction to Technical Product Management workshop for students to learn about product management methodologies and tools such as Agile and Scrum.

Afterward, Hack@UCI brought MIT’s Scratch programming language to UCI with its Scratch-a-Thon, a short hackathon all about creating projects with Scratch. The Video Game Design Club ended Thursday night with a Game Lab where students played Smash, Mario Kart and more.

Design at UCI kicked off Friday, the last day of ICS Week 2022, with a picnic; students got to know each other under the sun with food and games. Blockchain at UCI then held an Introduction to NFTs workshop and taught students how to mint a Petr NFT.

ICSSC wrapped up ICS Week 2022 with one of the most anticipated events of the week: ICS Prom. Many students had their high school dances and proms canceled due to COVID-19, so ICSSC’s ICS Prom, held in Donald Bren Hall, gave students a taste of what prom is really like. Students danced the night away with their friends, enjoying complimentary food and drinks.

“My favorite ICS Week event was definitely ICS Prom. I always tell people that if wedding planning got as much money as computer science, I would have switched majors ASAP,” says Pham. “It was nice to get a little taste of that type of planning experience with ICS Prom. I also just really like planning socials because I like seeing students meet new people and make memories.”

Pham adds that this year’s ICS Week was a hit and an enjoyable experience for ICSSC to plan and host because it brought the ICS community together.

“I think the most rewarding part of hosting ICS Week is the fact that I can look back on the event and be like ‘I did that.’ I do a lot of event planning … and I think just seeing people at your events and enjoying themselves and hanging out with their friends is the most rewarding feeling,” says Pham. “I just want to say thank you to everyone who attended ICS Week events!”

To keep up with ICSSC’s upcoming events, visit studentcouncil.www-dev.ics.uci.edu.

— Karen Phan