Competitions

In partnership with both UChicago experts and industry leaders, Career Advancement offers several industry-themed competitions to help students demonstrate their skills to employers. Students team up to design a solution to a business, technical, or policy challenge. Through these competitions, students build teamwork, problem solving, and communication skills that are in demand with employers. Students also receive coaching and feedback from experts.

College New Venture Challenge (CNVC)

The CNVC is the dedicated track of the Polsky Center’s nationally ranked New Venture Challenge program. It supports UChicago students who are interested in launching a startup. Teams receive training and develop and pitch their business ideas during the Winter quarter. Startup investors and successful founders coach and evaluate each startup, and winners receive seed funding to support their venture.

Tech Summer Showcase

This is a Hackathon-inspired event where undergraduate computer science students have the chance to work on technical projects during the summer quarter and present to a selection of judges, advisors and mentors and compete for awards. This is an excellent resume-builder opportunity to show real-world skills applied outside of the classroom.

UChicago Game Jam

All artists, composers, writers, game designers, and programmers are invited to join the UChicago Game Jam! Over the course of a single weekend, teams of students will immerse themselves in the design and development process and create an original, playable game. This event is open to undergraduate students of all experience levels!

UChicago Impact Competition

The UChicago Impact Competition is a “Shark Tank” style competition where teams of students pitch ideas to address a policy challenge. Each year features a different policy theme. Winning teams receive funding to implement their policy solutions.

UChicago Stock Pitch Competition

The UChicago Stock Pitch Competition is an opportunity for you to explore public equities investing by constructing a detailed analysis of an investment recommendation. Teams of 3-4 UChicago undergraduate students will analyze and present a stock investment opportunity, demonstrating skills in research, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and ability to effectively communicate their findings. This is a great chance for students to gain practical finance experience and receive feedback from industry experts on their application of finance knowledge. Participants will benefit from preparation workshops, mentorship, and office-hour coaching resources. Students of all experience levels are encouraged to apply (as part of a team or request team assignment)! Learn more.

UChicago Tech Community Challenge

Students compete to create the most beneficial technical resources for the UChicago computer science community. Example resources include a web app to facilitate practice technical interviews and a student-created course on programming in Java. This program drives student innovation. and instills a sense of giving back in the CS student community.

UChicago Trading Competition

The UChicago Trading Competition is the nation’s premier algorithmic trading competition. The competition features case studies designed to challenge participants in multiple aspects and themes of trading. Participants are asked to develop algorithms to make automated trading decisions, and will have their technical programming skills, financial acumen, and ability to adjust based on algorithm performance tested. The competition is supported by the leading companies in algorithmic trading.