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This weekend I took six fabulous teenage boys to Radford University for a programming contest. It was a great opportunity for us to visit the campus, since Jabem has been accepted in to their Information Technology program. It was a beautiful campus with an unexpectedly cohesive design that I found really appealing. They have several quads with gorgeous green lawns and large shady trees. Nothing was too far from anything else, so you could be sitting in your dorm and be in your class within just a short walk.

Jabem couldn’t come on any of the tours with us because he was busy with the contest. And to tell you the truth, he wasn’t as impressed as we were. Speaking as a parent, I love the seclusion of the campus. I like the fact that it is not an urban campus. There are lots of security measures apparent (like phone boxes) every where you look, for the safety of the students. I loved how clean it was. I liked the food options. They had their own Barns & Noble ~ Sweet! It wasn’t crowded at all. And all the students I spoke to were very friendly. Especially those in the Information Technology field.

I now understand that a big purpose of holding these contests is to lure potential students in to their college. There was a huge press to get them to apply and come to this college and bring their friends. They are really working hard at making their computer majors very competitive with other major colleges in our state. They actually have seven concentrations of computer study (Computer Science, Database, Software Engineering, Networks, Information Systems, Enterprise System Development, and Web Development), where as most of the other colleges have only two or three. I think they really have an eye to the future and that some day they will be a much more prestigious college.

We brought two teams to the competition. And both teams were definite contenders for the crown. My husband and I were in the score room at the end of the competition and one of the professors was painstakingly explaining the scoring process to us using the scoreboard as an example. Each team was given six computer scenario problems to solve. The team that solved the most problems in the three hour time span was the winner. If there was a tie (which there was), then an elaborate system of penalty points would be factored in to break the tie. They were given penalty points for each incorrect submission of a problem, and penalty points if they took to long to solve a problem, and so on. The teams with the fewest penalty points would take first, then second, and so on.

It all came down to the last ten minutes. There were two teams that had solved four problems and they were in a tie for first place. At that time, each of our teams had solve three problems each. Then one of our teams solved a fourth problem, admitting them in to the tie, also. Our other team, the fourth place team, had the fewest penalty points of all the teams on the board. If they had been able to submit their last problem they would have had first place because of the fewest amount of penalty points. Unfortunately, they tried to submit a few times and it just didn’t go through. We were speculating that the Radford judges may have actually stopped the competition submissions before the contestants knew that it was over. That way nobody would have a chance to sneak in a submission while they were turning off the submission access.

Either way, we had one team who took third place, and one team who took fourth place. And I will tell you that this was a room full of geniuses. These are some bright kids. I was so impressed with the quality of the video game presentations, and the articulate nature of every person that spoke. I think it must have been grueling to be hunched over a computer in a stressful competition and still come out of it with the best attitudes!

I think every mother worries about how their teenagers behave on one of these trips. I know that I do. But I must say, there is not one boy in our bunch that I would not be proud to call mine. They were so well mannered in the car (4-hour trip), and at meal times, and in the hotel, and at the competition. They were not noisy, they didn’t sneak off, and they had such positive attitudes all weekend. I would take them again in a heartbeat.

One of the funniest conversations we had took place in the van on the way to Radford. One of the boys commented, “Hey, look! It’s the fuzz!” and none of the other boys knew what he was referring to. When he justified this archaic slang, saying that “his parents call the police the fuzz, and don’t your parents say stuff that no one else says?” They all laughed and said, “Yes!” I was tempted to tell them that the police were also referred to as “pigs” back then, but I refrained.