UCI School of Medicine PhD student group hosts coding workshops for area high schoolers

This summer, a UCI PhD student run group, called ReachOut TeachOut (ROTO),hosted two computer coding workshops—one at Westminster High School and one at Santiago High School in Garden Grove—for 9th-12th graders. During the computer coding workshops, high schoolers were shown how to import, visualize and analyze big datasets in RStudio, a professional computer software program for data science.

As technology continues to progress, computer coding has become increasingly integrated across all science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines through various applications (e.g., machine learning, computational modeling, data mining and data analysis). To stay ahead of the curve, PhD students believe it is essential to help our next generation of STEM leaders build their coding skills.

ReachOut TeachOut is a graduate student-led campus organization that was founded in 2017 at the UCI School of Medicine by Dr. Autumn Holmes. From the start, the program’s mission has been to immerse local underrepresented high school students in STEM research and careers. Program activities include mentoring high school students for the Orange County Science & Engineering Fair, hosting STEM workshops and science trivia nights for high school students and conducting laboratory tours. These activities also help graduate students, who now come from various STEM departments at UCI, to sharpen their science communication and teaching skills.