Conference and Event Services

The department of Conference and Event Services (CES) is currently seeking qualified students to assist the professional staff in the daily operations for the summer 2023 camp and conference season. CES provides students the opportunity to enhance their academic learning experience in a work environment by learning the operational aspects of our department and to broaden their communication, social, listening and writing skills, all while providing superior customer service for one of the leading universities. Please visit our website for additional information on both opportunities below:

Summer Program Assistants

The Summer Program Assistants (SPAs) will deliver superior customer service to our clients and guests by providing assistance with logistical, planning, operational and check-in services. Interested students can apply through Handshake.

Employment dates: May 22 - August 12, 2023
Rate: $11.50 per hour
Free On-Campus Housing

Conference and Event Services

The Office of Pre-College Programs seeks to hire student leaders to support its robust summer programs, which include 12 academic programs, with over 700 high school students, and offers a life-changing immersive college experience, inside and outside of the classroom. CMU undergraduate and graduate students are hired as Resident Assistants (RAs) and Community Advisors (CAs) to provide a well-rounded offering of programming, support, and community development to enhance the Pre-College Programs' residential experience. 

Pre-College RAs and CAs receive a financial stipend with room and board, ongoing training, professional development, and time off.

Students can apply directly for the positions, or students, faculty, and staff can nominate students for the roles. Visit the Pre-College website for more information. Contact Jena Grgurich at pclife@andrew.cmu.edu with any questions you may have.

RA and CA Applications and Deadlines:

• Community Advisor
  Deadline to apply: Friday, March 31, 11:59 PM
• Resident Assistant
  Deadline to apply: Monday, April 10, 11:59 PM

03-121 Modern Biology

Summer Two (IPE)

This is an introductory course that provides the basis for further studies in biochemistry, cell biology, genetics and molecular biology. This course emphasizes the chemical principles underlying biological processes and cell structures as well as the analysis of genetics and heredity from a molecular perspective. This is the introductory biology course for all science and non-science majors.

03-132 Basic Science to Modern Medicine

Summer One (REO) & Summer Two (IPE)

The goal of this course is to give students an understanding of the biology that impacts their everyday lives. Disease can be a tragic part of human life, a fact that is even more apparent during a global pandemic. To understand how specific diseases like COVID-19 or cancer affect the human body, and how modern medicine can tackle them, this course includes a fundamental study of the basic molecular biology, genetics, and cell biology that underlies disease. This is a topics-based course, with topics chosen to cover aspects of biology and health that students are likely to encounter in their daily lives. The topics for summer 2023 will include COVID-19, genome editing, and cancer. We will explore these topics from both a basic science and a modern medicine perspective. Students will gain the expertise to critically evaluate media reports about biology and health, and to ask the questions that will help them to make educated decisions in their lives.

03-133 Neurobiology of Disease

Summer Two (IPE)

This course will explore the biological basis of several neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases, with an emphasis on medical diagnostic tools and techniques. It will include discussions of the anatomical basis of neurological diseases as well as recent research into understanding the mechanisms of disease. This course is intended to broaden students' understanding of how diseases are diagnosed and studied.  Students will also learn how basic neurological and psychiatric evaluations are conducted.  We will discuss neurobiological research to serve as a basis for understanding brain structures and functional alterations in a variety of developmental, degenerative, neurological, and psychiatric disorders.

99-520 Collaborative Research Through Projects

Summer All

79-249/S 20th Century U.S. History

Summer One

This survey course covers the history of the United States from Reconstruction to today through by focusing on migration, race and ethnicity, and citizenship or national belonging. Chronologically organized, the course centers key themes and issues of social, economic, and political importance in both past and present. We will also explore how historical events and their documentation change in meaning and importance over time, and what forces and influences shape these realities. Overall, we will consider the causes, processes, and experiences shaping the arrival of different immigrant groups to the United States at different historical moments. More specifically, we will follow migrations of different groups of people, like African Americans, north and westward; European immigrants into coastal port cities and beyond; Mexican bracero workers into agricultural industries; Chinese laborers work experiences in diverse economic settings; and more. We will apply critical lenses toward movements like Americanization and try to understand different groups of citizens' divergent experiences with national belonging. We will also interrogate the logics, values, and symbols that shaped ideas regarding ethnic, racial, class, and gender difference, particularly as they were used to characterize difference regarding citizenship.

79-291/S Innovation and Entertainment: A Business History of American Popular Culture

Summer One

This course will examine one topic in popular culture and entertainment per week, from newspapers to streaming services. The course will consider these industries through the lens of business history, documenting innovation and the development of entertainment as commodities. While we will trace many changes over the years, we will primarily focus on the birth of new industries. Guiding questions will be: How did the country's economy, society, and politics structure the development of popular culture? How did performers and entrepreneurs develop industries around new innovations in popular culture? And how did popular culture shape the country's economy, society, and politics?

79-331/S Body Politics: Women and Health in America

Summer One

[Note: Students who have taken 66-121, First Year Seminar: Body Politics:     Women and Health in America, may not enroll.] This course takes a topical, intersectional approach to the history of U.S. women's health in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is less about governmental politics, although we do some of that. Rather, it sees bodies as cultural texts through which power is built and contested. The course covers topics such as the history of anatomy, menstruation, reproductive rights, body image, mental health, sexuality, violence, childbirth, and menopause. We explore how science and American culture both have constructed these issues over time (some of it is super whacky!), while also examining women's organizing around them. This course is open to all students.

79-388/S Sports in American Culture

Summer Two

[Note: students who have taken course number 79-388, with former titles, Race, Gender, and the Politics of Sports in America since 1900 or 79-388, History of Sports in the United States, may not enroll.] In this course, we will survey the history of sport in the United States from the late nineteenth-century into the twenty-first century. While we will discuss star athletes, famous games, and popular teams, we will focus more so on evaluating the significance of sport in American history. Specifically, we will analyze sports through four themes: westernization/globalization; the emergence and development of Capitalism; industrialization and technological change; and democratization. By doing so, we will examine the changing power relationship between the athletes, owners, and consumers (fans). We will pay particular attention to athletes' changing role in American society and the public's growing expectation that these men and women speak or act on social and political issues. By semester's end, students will look beyond box scores and critically assess how sports has reflected larger trends in our society as well as its continued influence on American life.

53-353 - Understanding Game Engines

Summer One

This course is designed for non-programmers who wish to learn how to use modern game engines such as Unity (which will be the primary tool used for this course). Students will learn the fundamental components and features of game engines (such as objects, inputs, movement, interactions, physics, UI, artwork and animation, sound, and more) and the terminology and theory behind them. Students will attend lectures and participate in example exercises to illustrate these concepts, and put these concepts to practice in their assignment work. This course does not have prerequisites, but a basic understanding of common code concepts (variables, loops, conditional statements) is recommended.

60-125 - Introduction to 3D Animation Pipeline

Summer One

This class will explore computer animation as it pertains to a professional animation production pipeline. The course is designed to give students exposure to key job descriptions that align to the animation industry. Topics covered include: character design, world building, storyboarding, digital sculpture, look development, rigging, layout, animation, cinematography, lighting, and rendering.  These topics are taught in 2-4 week sprints that allow a student to learn the fundamentals of each craft. In a mixture of class lectures, critiques, and training workshops,  students will become acquainted with the necessary skills needed to create their own characters and animations. By completion of the course, students will be familiar with industry-standard best practices and ready to take advanced courses related to animation, vfx, and video game related pipelines. This course specifically offers insight on how the craft of animation is always evolving at top studios such as Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, and Industrial Light and Magic.

10-301 / 10-601 Introduction to Machine Learning

Summer-All

Machine Learning is concerned with computer programs that automatically improve their performance through experience (e.g., programs that learn to recognize human faces, recommend music and movies, and drive autonomous robots). This course covers the theory and practical algorithms for machine learning from a variety of perspectives. We cover topics such as Bayesian networks, decision tree learning, Support Vector Machines, statistical learning methods, unsupervised learning and reinforcement learning. The course covers theoretical concepts such as inductive bias, the PAC learning framework, Bayesian learning methods, margin-based learning, and Occam’s Razor. Programming assignments include hands-on experiments with various learning algorithms. This course is designed to give a graduate-level student a thorough grounding in the methodologies, technologies, mathematics and algorithms currently needed by people who do research in machine learning.

10-301 is recommended for undergraduates who are not SCS majors and counts towards the Machine Learning Minor. (SCS majors should instead take 10-315 in Fall or Spring.) 10-601 is recommended for quantitative master's students & PhD students outside MLD.