With so many clubs and organizations on the high school campus, each student is able to find their niche. Some students have found the perfect fit for them on the UIL Computer Science team.

The team consists of 12 members who compete in contests based on programming, which is referred to as Java. The students competing take a 40-question written exam and are then given a packet consisting of 12 programming questions with only two hours to complete. The top three scores are then added together to determine an overall winner.

“Three of the four students on each team do the programming portion of the test,” Computer Science teacher Terry Morris said. ” I really like this contest because when the contestants are programming they are working together as a team. They have to work together well because while there are three of them there is only one computer.”

The team has had a very successful past and have won at the District and Regional levels. They also placed fourth at State in 2015 and second last year.

“We were beaten by a team from Needville High School which has had either an individual or a team compete at the state tournament for the last ten years,” Morris said. ” They have won the state championship four years in a row and five of the last six years.”

The students involved spend Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays after school until 5:30 working on contest prompts and written tests.

“Two years ago we started a once a week summer practice,” Morris said. “So we have the opportunity to practice year round. It allows them to become really competitive.”

In a year, the team attends around 12 contests. Two of those contests give the students some great opportunities. Code Wars is a contest held at the Hewlitt Packard corporate office. There are about 200 teams present. Students get an internship when they graduate if they are able to win.

“We have a contest in Houston on Oct. 8,” Morris said. “We started going to the Houston contests two years ago for two reasons. The students get to see how good you can get at the contests because the contests are open, meaning that we compete against all levels including the 6A schools.”

Although it involves programming, Computer Science is much more than that.

“When you really break it down, Computer Science is problem solving,” Morris said.