On Tuesday, September 9, 2010, several Southwestern computer science students and faculty “progressed” through appetizers, dinner and dessert.  The culinary adventure started at Will Nguyen’s on-campus apartment for several selections of yummy hors d’oeuvres, then on to Dr. Buchele’s for the main dishes, and lastly to Michael Party’s off-campus apartment for dessert and games.  It was a great way to get to know and learn interesting tidbits about each other (for example, Michael has a COOL apartment, and Will is a great cook!)  

On Friday, October 15, 2010 fifteen Southwestern computer science students, accompanied by two faculty and two ITS staff toured two different areas of IBM Austin facilities.  The day started with a two presentations given by members of the Integrated Systems Development Group at IBM Austin’s Executive Briefing Center.  We then had the fantastic opportunity to tour the Virtualization and Future Technologies lab, which gave us all a hands-on view of embedded systems as they are used today and will be used in the future, in applications ranging from home use to hospital and industrial applications.  Then we went across the street to the high performance computing lab and the Systems & Technology Group, where we had a presentation on IBM’s most powerful computers, and then were able to go into the lab and see the newest of the IBM Power systems, a water cooled petaFLOP machine, with a tour led by the engineers who develop these cutting edge systems.  The day ended with a late lunch at Rudy’s BBQ in Round Rock.  It was an incredible day!