Rare chance to learn new skills

A Bunbury student has been selected as one of 100 from around the country to take part in a specialised programming camp next year.

Year 10 student Caitlin Shaw will travel to the University of Sydney in January for an intensive 10-day summer school program at the National Computer Science School.

She will join other Year 11 and 12 students in learning a “different language” of programming while getting a taste of life as a university student.

Caitlin said her selection was a surprise but she was excited about learning something new.

“It will be really cool learning, because it’s a different type of programming that I haven’t done before,” Caitlin said.

“Some of it’s programming robots but it’s a different language and it’s mostly finding solutions to things using code.”

Her invitation to apply for the summer school followed her success in a coding competition run by the NCSS earlier in the year, in which she scored a high distinction.

While Caitlin admitted she “freaked out” when she first got the news, she said she was looking forward to being part of the experience and meeting other students.

“It will be really cool to see if it’s what I want to do it at uni,” she said.

Caitlin said her enjoyment of science stemmed from the fact she could solve complex problems by using a simple formula.