2018 Student Engagement (Service) Award
Tara Stentz (ENG 2018) will graduate in May 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering and a minor in computer science, has been deeply involved with the introductory class, 15-112 Fundamentals of Programming.
She has served as a teaching assistant (TA) for seven semesters and as a head TA for the past two years. The course policy changes that Stentz helped push for improved the TA staff morale and cohesion, and reduced the stress and workload for the 1,000 students who take the class each year. She also launched Hack112, an annual weekend-long event that involves alumni and shows students how the skills they’ve learned in the Fundamentals of Programming course can be applied.
Her passion for education extends to every level, from the local Girls Who Code Club to the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda. This year, she also served as a teaching assistant for a new project, CMU CS Academy, a free, online high school computer science curriculum developed by master’s students.