Tech Topia Challenge

Last Friday and Saturday I attended the Tech Topia Challenge at Neumont University.
The purpose behind the Challenge was to show prospective students kind of what it would be like to attend the school.
I personally found it very interesting. I have always considered attending Neumont; I just had not dived into the details very much.




Neumont University is a school located in South Jordan, Utah. It is focused 100% towards computers. The idea that Neumont goes by is that you learn better if you actually experience the environment that you will be working in. They do not teach things that are not needed, instead, they teach everything that you need to know then put you to work using it in a real world environment. They do this by partnering with some of the leading technology companies like IBM, Microsoft, and EBay to allow you to work on projects that those companies are working on. For instance, Microsoft has allowed Neumont to use the early release of Microsoft Visual Studios 2010 for testing, and Neumont can submit ideas and changes to Microsoft that will be used in the final release of Visual Studios 2010. This will not even be released for two more years.
The part the is really impressive is that most students complete the course in less then 2 years or less. At a standard University it would take 4 or more years.

Anyway, the Challenges included doing some programming using a program called Green Foot, doing some logics tests, creating a XNA game for the computer, or for the Xbox, and creating a simple flash webpage.

They also had a Wii there with Rock Band, which a lot of people played when ever they could.

After the Tech Topia Challenges, they had a few awards (scholarships). I received a $2,000 scholarship from them.

They made a video of what we did, it is embedded below.