October 10, 2013

Training seminars on database modeling and ASP.NET are now available online, thanks to an innovative partnership between a Pittsburgh-based computer consulting company and a local college.

Working in cooperation with the Computer Science Department at Grove City College, representatives of B-Three Solutions presented a 5-lesson seminar on ASP.NET in March 2013. An earlier 7-lesson seminar, presented in March 2012, covered data modeling.  The narrated slideshows from these seminars have now been made available through B-Three’s website (www.bthreesolutions.com) and Youtube channel (www.youtube.com/user/bthreesolutions).

The seminars were tailored to Computer Science majors and coordinated by the chair of that department, Dr. William Birmingham.  Each lesson was taught by one B-Three employee, and immediately followed by a computer lab where students applied what they had just learned, with all five B-Three representatives (Jamie Schultz, Bob Elliot, Aaron Cuffman, Andy Nagle, and Adam Schultz) providing assistance.  In addition to being posted to Youtube, the edited video segments produced by B-Three have been compiled on DVDs, for use by Grove City students.

The two training seminars represent the most recent expansion of the relationship between the company and the college – a relationship that began with B-Three’s participation in Grove City’s Career Fair, which takes place in the fall of each year.  At the Career Fair, undergraduate students talk with B-Three representatives, and some of the students then apply for the company’s summer internship program.

Two members of the B-Three seminar team – Aaron Cuffman and Adam Schultz – are recent graduates of Grove City.  Each of them originally came to B-Three as a student employee, via the internship program.  Going back to 2009, more than a dozen Grove City students have worked as interns or have been mentored by B-Three personnel, and four of them were then hired as full‑time employees after graduating.  Appropriately, it was another recent Grove City graduate, Kelly Schultz, who produced the seminar videos and created B-Three’s Youtube channel.

Jamie Schultz, B-Three’s Vice President of Operations, serves on the committee that evaluates the senior projects completed by the college’s Computer Science majors.  Asked to characterize the internship program, Schultz responded by saying that the hiring of those recent graduates demonstrates that B-Three has built a “win-win-win” relationship with Grove City.

Expanding on that statement, Schultz described the “wins” in the relationship:  “The college’s IT department benefits from its interaction with B-Three; individual students launch their IT careers; and B-Three gains mature, talented employees.”