Two months ago, Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), the largest student organization for technology at Florida International University (FIU), collaborated with other tech clubs and began their series of virtual workshops for Spring 2021.
UPE’s first event for the new semester was a Resume Building Workshop, which was hosted virtually on Tuesday, January 19th at 6:00PM EST. This event was special, for it was a joint effort by the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and UPE Advance, UPE’s program dedicated to career development. Through this collaboration, over 70 participants were able to learn the basics of creating a strong resume, discuss formatting for tech-specific resumes, and more.
Mariana Ontiveros, SHPE President and CAHSI Advocate, shares her thoughts on the importance of these partnerships with the following statement: “Collaborating with student organizations around FIU builds a sense of community between the students which focuses on growth and helping those around us succeed.” She further describes her love for seeing such support by emphasizing how these interactions between different familias improve, not only our collegiate and post-collegiate careers, but ourselves as well. We greatly look forward to developing our alliances with even more joint events in the future!
Exactly two days after the Resume Building Workshop was UPE Design’s very first event. The meeting was called “Fundamentals of Design”, in which almost 50 attendees learned how to create impactful compositions for all project visuals, the basics of design features, and how to resonate with great design structure.
Aside from Fundamentals of Design being UPE Design’s first event for the semester, it was actually their first event ever! This is because the program launched this Spring after careful consideration. As expected by the name, UPE Design is responsible for teaching design knowledge and skills through interactive workshops and activities. Kimberly Cruz, director of UPE Design, shares her excitement for UPE Design by relaying how she is very hopeful, considering how “many learned a lot of the UI/UX basics […] and are looking forward to the continuation.” She fully expects the program to continue its growth, and cannot wait to help her members refine their skills. With the grand efforts of her and her committee, we are sure to realize a bright future for the program!
Following Fundamentals of Design was UPE Code’s Introduction to Game Development, the first event of the program’s Game Development Workshop series for this semester. The presentation was virtually held on Friday, January 22nd at 6:00PM EST and was immensely popular! It attracted more than 65 participants, individuals who got the chance to be introduced to Unity, the #1 development platform for creating 2D and 3D video games. By following the presentation of Zackary Santana, Director of UPE Code, the attendees learned how to use Unity as well as the basics of C#, the selected programming language to develop their first game.
UPE Code is one of UPE’s most followed programs, for it serves to introduce and teach its members the ins and outs of software development. Despite only being a first-year student, Santana has headstarted many new features to this program, such as the ability to pursue a specific track. This update allows UPE Code members to be exposed to an increase of software-related content and workshops that cater to those who are complete beginners to more advanced programmers.
To view each workshop, please feel free to check out the following recordings:
- Resume Building Workshop: https://youtu.be/jmV_oeEQTuc
- Fundamentals of Design: https://youtu.be/6GTZCpwCBkE
- Introduction to Game Development: https://youtu.be/S-NdibuBzYg
If you’re interested in the organization and/or any of the programs, our UPE community welcomes you on https://discord.gg/upefiu. See you there!
Written by: Liana Louise Adaza