After the Lab is before the Lab

The bachelor degree programme Creative Computing, concludes with the final event "Creative Code Lab" (CCL) every semester. Within the space of two weeks, the students implement their own little project and reinforce their acquired knowledge and skills in the process.

"When it comes to project goals, we try to make sure that the students use all contents and abilities conveyed in the course of the last and current semesters", says Junior Researcher Lucas Schöffer who supervised the students in the past summer semester's CCL.

The motto of the second semester's CCL is "Connected World" and made the students pass through the entire spectrum of modern web development – including the preceding conception and research stages.

Concept and Prototype Development

In the run-up to the CCL, the students were already required to design concepts for innovative web applications and develop a complete graphic prototype (LoFi). In this context, the students' work was not limited to "run-of-the-mill" websites but resulted in modern web applications with dynamic content. Schöffer explains: "This means that the contents are stored in a database on the server. The processed sites ("views") displayed by the browser are built on the basis of these contents during runtime – in other words, exactly when they are accessed."

All modern web platforms with continually changing content are based on this principle. Thanks to their acquired knowledge, the students understand, for example, the background working of social media platforms or online shops, which enables them to develop such applications on their own.

In Great Demand: Full Stack Developer

In the Creative Code Lab, the students then had to put a small part of their self-designed applications into practice and Schöffer is very pleased with the results: "Our students have shown that  they have acquired the basics needed to develop complex, full web applications after only two semesters."

There is a strong need for developers that have both: the necessary client-side expertise (means everything that the users see in their browser and that they can interact with) and the know-how required for server-side programming, in other words, the logics "behind the scenes" including the connection of databases. The technical term for this type of expert is Full Stack Developer.

• Find selected projects from our second Creative Code Lab in the summer semester 2021 here.
• Obtain detailed information on the bachelor degree programme and its study contents here.

Winter Semester 2021/22

The third semester has just begun and the students are already working towards the third Creative Code Lab which will feature mobile applications.

With the start of this winter semester, we are happy to welcome many freshmen to the St. Pölten UAS once again. The (international) interest in the bachelor degree programme Creative Computing, which is taught entirely in English, remains high, which is why the students are divided into two groups for the first time.

Our 49 freshmen build a multi-cultural group of students. 60 percent come from Austria, while 40 percent come from different European countries and third countries (Azerbaijan, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Germany, Estonia, France, Hungary, Iran, Mexico, Romania, Chile, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine).

We wish all of our students a successful start for the winter semester 2021/22!