While their classmates were being recognized at Maryville College’s annual Celebration of Student Achievement ceremony in April, members of the Maryville College Computer Programming team were in Nashville earning accolades of their own, competing in the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC) Midsouth Conference Programming Contest at Lipscomb University.

Despite being the smallest school represented, the team achieved both first- and second-place finishes, outperforming groups from larger institutions across the region.

The competition featured 10 teams from seven colleges and universities across the Midsouth, bringing together computer science students and educators to promote collaboration and the exchange of ideas among higher education professionals involved in computing and technology, according to the CCSC website.

The team’s participation in the CCSC Midsouth Conference was made possible through a gift from former programming team member Cameron Presley ’11. The MC Student Government Association also contributed funding to ensure the team could attend.

The team has taken part in similar competitions throughout its history; however, this was the first time it had taken home the gold, a success made possible in large part by the leadership of now-retired MC Associate Professor of Computer Science Dr. Barbara Johnson, who has coached the team since its inception.

Johnson helped establish the Computer Programming Team shortly after her arrival at MC in the early 2000s, so in her final year at the College, bringing this win back to MC was the perfect cap to her career and an important honor for the students.

“Our placements at this competition show how committed we are to learning and how well we can apply the skills we’re taught when given the space and resources to do so,” said Alyssa Hummel ’27, a member of the second-place team. “Dr. Johnson built this program from the ground up. It’s helped me feel more secure in what kind of work I want to do once I graduate.”

The team’s success was rooted not only in diligent preparation but also in a strong sense of camaraderie and mutual support. Team members developed close friendships that strengthened their collaboration and confidence, heading into competition. In addition to biweekly team practices with Johnson, group members regularly spent time preparing on their own, hoping the extra practice would earn them a win.

“A lot of us spent our own time out of class practicing, both on random competitive problems we found and on the ‘problem of the week,’” said Christian Goethert ’27, a member of the second-place team.

“We’re a tight-knit group,” Goethert added. “Our team chemistry is perhaps our strongest asset. We also punch well above our weight – we are almost always the smallest school to compete, often by factors of more than ten times the student body count. To me, it’s evidence that having an environment where you learn with the same small group of people is incredibly powerful.”

The team’s relationship helped make the competition more enjoyable than stressful, team members said, alleviating some of the pressure and helping two of the three MC teams to a head-to-head matchup for the top two spots.

“I honestly never really thought of it as an ‘MC vs. MC team’ thing, but that we were all representatives of MC trying to place well,” said Goethert. “Both of our teams solved the same number of problems, so the difference ended up being on time penalties. I was as happy for them to win first as if I had won first myself.”

“I wasn’t surprised we didn’t get first considering the people on the other team, but our two teams were neck and neck for almost the whole competition,” Hummel added. “It was really awesome we could all win together.”

This isn’t the end for the Computer Programming Team at MC, and Johnson hopes that she has set the organization up for success after her departure, although she knows that her students will continue to work hard to grow the club and succeed.

Maryville College is a nationally ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges, located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville. Maryville College offers more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”

Karen Eldridge, Executive Director of Communications: karen.eldridge@maryvillecollege.edu.

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