Brothers Brandon and Allen Gustrowsky recently brought home a 1st place award from the national SkillsUSA competition that took place in June in Atlanta, Georgia. Both are computer science majors at Southern – a junior and sophomore, respectively.
SkillsUSA is a career and technical student organization that the Gustrowskys became involved with through the local chapter that exists on Southern’s campus. According to Dakota Cookenmaster, adjunct professor in the School of Computing and Southern’s SkillsUSA coach, this was the first time Southern’s SkillsUSA chapter had gone to the national competition.
Cookenmaster said Southern first had to compete in a state competition, however. He added that Southern was the only university present at the state competition as SkillsUSA is more oriented toward trade and community colleges.
“When they competed, I was just really hoping. We’d put in hundreds of hours of training time at this point,” Cookenmaster said. “I’m just like, ‘I hope one of them places.’”
Cookenmaster said Southern took the top two spots at the state competition, with junior computer science majors Simon Sierra and Adrian Morales receiving second place and the Gustrowskys receiving first, enabling the two brothers to move on to the national competition.
“The competition was a week long; it was like a big conference with lots of different competitions,” Allen said.
The event began with a day of orientation, where all the contestants were told what the rules were and what to expect, according to Brandon. The next day, he and his brother competed in the web-design competition. They started out by interviewing a mock client and getting an idea for the purpose of the website and what the message needed to be.
“After that, we went into the wireframing stage, which is like sketching out the site and planning it out visually,” said Brandon.
According to the Gustrowskys, there were two distinct roles for the project. Allen took on the technical role and Brandon specialized in the design. The judges interviewed the brothers about their thought process regarding the wireframe to ensure it was laid out the way the client wanted. From there, Allen and Brandon built the code from scratch.
After hearing that the brothers received first place, Cookenmaster said he felt “floored.”
“First and foremost, I was just so proud of them,” Cookenmaster said. “ … I was shocked that we had really strongly beaten out all the trade schools, especially because this was our first year going to the competition. I was floored, honestly.”
Brandon said it was an enriching experience for him and his brother, and he encourages students on campus to do more than just attend class.
“Look for extra opportunities to build your skills in whatever your field is,” he said. “Get involved, and try to focus on developing leadership and communication abilities. I think that will help you not only academically, but in your personal life as well.”
