Following a Successful Kickoff, UPE Hosts Workshops and Elections
During October, Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), the largest student organization for technology at Florida International University (FIU), arranged various in-person workshops and hosted their 2021 Executive Board elections!
To start off the month, UPE InfoTech, UPE’s program dedicated to information technology, hosted an Intro to Linux workshop. The event was held in-person on Friday, October 1st and attracted almost 40 attendees! These lucky individuals were able to learn about Linux, one of the most popular operating systems (OS) today, for it powers smartphones, cars, supercomputers, and more. Lillian Ash, Director of UPE InfoTech, expresses her joy towards her event’s success by sharing how they “installed Kali Linux on Virtual Box, … learned more about what the Linux operating system is comprised of at a fundamental level [and] common commands to execute in terminal mode, and finished up by setting up their own simple web server.” Whether one’s interested in cybersecurity, networks, or any other tech profession, Ash recommends Linux as a popular and customizable OS that can benefit all!
Following UPE InfoTech was UPE Code with its Web Portfolio with React workshop. The in-person AND live-streamed event was led by none other than Zackary Santana, director of the software-focused program, on October 8th. Santana assisted over 60 students in creating a portfolio project that looks stylistic and shows off their experiences and skills through basic CSS styling and React.js, the most popular web framework. According to Santana, “The workshop was an energetic and productive build. The visually appealing React website was broken down into steps and finished in versions. Using Components with React is the first step to learning the framework, and this workshop did just that!”
Next in the UPE workshop schedule was a Design Thinking event on October 22nd. Aside from preparing fun activities and raffles, UPE Design Director Kim Cruz guided nearly 40 participants with capturing their creative, childlike spirit by teaching them the basics of visual design and the design process. “The event was actually rather fun for people, it brought a level of interactivity that sparked creativity and allowed for people to understand the modern design process better”, described Cruz. She also taught how to solve difficult design problems through common practice in the UI/UX and technology industry, information that Cruz strongly promotes to be useful for anyone interested in technology!
The last October workshop was an Intro to Raspberry Pi, which was hosted by UPE Make, UPE’s program for hardware development, and held on Friday, October 29th. Director Miguel De Jesus demonstrated to over 20 students how to use one of the smallest consumer computers by sharing the ways to navigate through the Raspberry Pi OS Linux environment, access the input/output (I/O) pins and functionality of the pi, and create a cool project using the Python programming language. With every member receiving their own hardware kit to work and prototype on, De Jesus considers the workshop was a huge success!
Held in between the four workshops was UPE’s Second General Meeting on Friday, October 15th. In this meeting, the UPE executive board discussed their largest upcoming events and potential partnerships, such as the Super Smash Bros Tournament, FIU’s Homecoming Uncaging, and more! However, that’s not all. Current UPE President Nicholas Gonzalez declares the meeting a significant day because “in addition to a General Body Meeting, the organization held its Executive Board Elections to elect candidates for President, Vice President, and RSO Representative”. With close to 60 votes, please meet the winning candidates!
With so many exciting plans in store, UPE is paving the way for another great semester! If you’re interested in the organization and/or any of the programs, the UPE community welcomes you on https://discord.gg/upefiu. See you there!
