Calling all coders
High schoolers encouraged to participate in Chronixx’s computing summer camp
Published:Thursday | November 14, 2024 | 12:07 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
High school students in grades nine through 11 are being encouraged to apply to JamCoders 2025.
Founded by Jamar ‘Chronixx’ McNaughton, JamCoders is an annual summer camp that teaches adolescents programming and algorithms.
Speaking with The Gleaner recently, Zaria Chen Shui, head teaching assistant at JamCoders, stated that the coding camp, which will run from June 29 to July 25, 2025, offers free dorm accommodation and three complimentary meals daily to all student participants.
In addition, classes run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and consist of one-hour lectures and two-hour lab sessions that involve practical coding time in front of a computer to reinforce the material covered in lectures. Students also get a one hour and a half lunch break.
JamCoders was initially introduced in the summer of 2022 and operates in collaboration with the Department of Computing at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona.
University-level programming
The curriculum is greatly influenced by AddisCoder, a free, four-week intense summer programme that was established in Ethiopia by Professor Jelani Nelson, a co-founder of JamCoders and chair of the Computer Science Division at the University of California, Berkeley.
Chen Shui added that the curriculum helps to prepare pupils for advanced computer studies by exposing them to sophisticated, university-level programming and algorithms.
“In addition to the four professors that teach them, they also have a team of 10 teaching assistants who are able to give them a lot of attention. So the student-teacher ratio is just incredible – it’s about one to four – so that they can feel supported and they can get all the support and attention they need in order to grapple with what’s a really big academic challenge, but it’s so that they can successfully do it,” she told The Gleaner.
“Every July, they are taught how to code from professors from Harvard, UC Berkeley, and UWI ... . We have a lot of students who come from [various] backgrounds because we are trying to get students from every single parish across Jamaica,” she said.
Chen Shui went on to say that it is a wonderful thing when students who may not have otherwise thought about attending university are shown what university life is like and their views change.
“The programme is fully funded and [includes] no cost to the students or their family, so this is just a massive opportunity to increase access to computing for Jamaican students,” she said.
The deadline for registration is December 31 at 11:59 p.m., and no programming experience is required to apply.
When submitting an application, students must provide a copy of their school transcripts or report card (copies for the last two years) with a short essay detailing their interest in being part of the programme.
Additionally, students must have excelled academically in mathematics and other related subjects.
Applications can be made at https://apply.jamcoders.org.jm/apply.