Engineering Now .: Volume 3 - Edition 3 .: October 2006

Ryan Kohn’s ingenuity changes SE350y forever

Fourth-year Software Engineering student Ryan Kohn was one of 20 students out of 300 applicants to receive the McGraw-Hill Ryerson Student Scholarship Award.

Fourth-year Software Engineering student Ryan Kohn saw an opportunity to improve his third year Software Engineering Design I course (SE350y), and his efforts are still being rewarded today.

“The Software Engineering Design I course allows students to develop skills not only in software development but also in terms of team management,” explains Professor Miriam Capretz. “Besides, developing a software project from its inception to its delivery, students have to collect data by hand from each team member and then plan, track and assess the project’s performance and quality weekly.”

As Planning Manager for his group, Kohn felt manually calculating and tracking the data was unnecessary so he designed an Excel-based program to automatically calculate his team’s information.

“Ryan always goes above and beyond the call of duty,” says Capretz. “Designing this tracking planning tool went above his requirements for this project. He is a natural leader and an innovative thinker.”

Capretz was so impressed with Kohn’s software system she made it a permanent resource tool for the SE350y course. She also nominated Kohn for a student scholarship from McGraw-Hill Ryerson, a Canadian publisher of educational resources and information products and services.

“I was completely surprised when Professor Capretz told me she wanted to nominate me for this award,” says Kohn. “I was even more surprised when I won.”

Kohn was one of 20 students out of 300 applicants selected as a recipient of the McGraw-Hill Ryerson Student Scholarship Award.

Vice-President of Higher Education, McGraw-Hill Ryerson told Kohn in an email, “Your application stood out among the panel of adjudicators in terms of your integrity, the initiative you showed and the overall impact that you had on your professor, and your class and fellow students.”

Kohn will receive $500 as part of the scholarship. “Don’t ask me how I will spend the money,” Kohn says with a smile. After a few seconds he adds, “I guess I will use it for tuition.”

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.: Allison Stevenson
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Telephone: (519) 850-2917 Fax: (519) 661-3808
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