Freehold High School in Freehold Borough is the only school in the world that has had three grand prize winners of the Google Code-in Contest, according to a press release from the Freehold Regional High School District.
Stephanie Taylor, a representative from Google, informed students in the school’s Computer Science Academy of this honor when she visited the school in October.
Taylor came to Freehold High School to discuss this year’s Google Code-in Contest. The contest focuses on open source coding. Participants complete various open source tasks presented by mentor organizations over a seven-week period. The contest allows students to explore different open source projects and use the skills they are learning in the classroom in real life settings. Taylor was pleased to see many of the academy’s students were already familiar with open source, according to the press release.
Last year, Chaitya Shah (class of 2015) was one of the grand prize winners. Grand prize winners are invited to visit Google’s headquarters in California. Grand prize winners are selected based on the amount of tasks completed, then evaluated based on the student’s creativity, thoroughness, quality of work and community involvement.
The Computer Science Academy is a four-year program of study for students who wish to explore the field of computer science. Students take at least one computer science course each year as well as specialized mathematics courses during the first two years of the program, according to the press release.
The purpose of the academy is to provide students with the opportunity to undertake a disciplined approach to the study and application of computer programming. Students develop programming and other technical skills, thereby developing the expertise required to create high quality, computer-based solutions to real problems.
