Project Management

For the start of day six for the STEM Camp, the students started by working on coding on the Raspberry Pi’s. After working on the Raspberry Pi’s, the students got a chance to hear from their first guest speaker of the day. The guest speaker for the morning was Mr. Mark Carter. Mr. Carter is a Software Implementation Manager. Mr. Carter is responsible for creating a budget and making sure that individuals in his team are doing their part of the project. The part of his job that he enjoys the most is helping others solve problems.

Our second guest speaker of the day was Samuel Henderson. Mr. Henderson is an IT Project Manager for the Virginia Department of Transportation, and the father of a student. Mr. Henderson talked to the students about what a project manager does and works with. Project managers look at the idea of the project, the availability of resources, the details, and the potential ways to get the job done. Mr. Henderson also explained that when big devices that are needed for a project are transported, sometimes the Virginia Department of Transportation or Department of Motor Vehicles have to determine a route and stop traffic to allow the device to get to its destination. He also described to the students what a project is and that every project has a beginning and an end.

After listening to the second guest speaker, the students got a chance to go outside. While outside, the students played basketball with two of the interns. Once they finished their game of basketball, they went back inside at the end of the day to prepare for the competition. The students were originally supposed to participate in the competition on Friday, however due to unseen circumstances, it had to be pushed back. Although the competition was pushed back to Tuesday, the students are excited and ready to compete against each other to see who will take the top prize.

Written and Photographed by Onnia Thomas

Majoring in Computer Information Systems, Onnia is a STEM Camp 2019 intern and rising senior at Virginia Union University.