rjprins

I'm a student at a university with and idea and the opportunity to set up a work environment for other/new CS students (who volunteer for this initiative).

I believe students are motivated to learn, but the university environment can make it hard to stay motivated (for some). To keep them motivated and to turn these students into resourceful hackers I have a few ideas:

1) Form a group no bigger than 12 people, organize some activities to create cohesion.

2) Give this group their own space, which they can personalize. It should also feature nice/cool, non-campus-standard furniture to create a good atmosphere.

3) Set up (relaxed) rules for attendance, people should at least feel socially obligated to come in everyday. Note that the students that apply for this group are not naturally very self-disciplined.

4) ???

I think a parallel can be drawn with agile development teams, but they are not getting paid for it. Do you have ideas on how to make this work and prevent people from dropping out or falling behind in their studies?

What did you miss when you attended university?

Thanks for your help!