WKU News
Hatcher and Polak build experience and functionality with iWKU
- Aurelia Spaulding
- Thursday, January 30th, 2025
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There’s an app for that. Living in a world where users can search for anything online, students can find just about anything they need to know about WKU in the iWKU app.
With 14 categories of information for students, it makes sense for students to be directly involved in the maintenance of one of the key resources for current and incoming students.
Those students directly involved are Thompson Station, Tennessee, junior Hudson Hatcher and Bowling Green senior Matthew Polak, who work with Diana Keeling, Manager of Web Development - Application & Program Services and Luke Akridge, Web Developer, to keep the iWKU app up-to-date.
Hatcher came to WKU to study Game Design and Polak enrolled with plans to become a hardware engineer, but after this immersive experience in information technology, the two shifted their focus to the development side of computer science.
“I wanted to move into something more with my major. So, I was looking around on Handshake to find some different internships, and eventually found the iWKU Student Developer position,” explained Hatcher, who started his position more than a year ago, in the fall of 2023 as a sophomore.
Polak explained, “Originally, I wanted to go into hardware engineering. As I took more classes in computer science, I noticed a lot were software-based, and I became interested in it.”
As student developers, Hatcher and Polak work on projects for the iWKU app and the University website. For the app, they send app changes to Akridge and Keeling who review them for optimization. Then, the changes are pushed into production. “The students do most of the work on the app, and we just double-check it,” Keeling said.
The iWKU app was created in 2012 by a full-time web developer at WKU. A few years later, it became an opportunity for students to gain experience working with staff to maintain and improve.
“I was fortunate to have a job where I did web development while I was a student,” Keeling said. “They [teachers in her classes] taught the basic concepts, and I got to take the basic concepts and implement them on the job. I felt it would be a great opportunity for students to give them the same experience by bringing the app in-house and giving them the opportunity to do it.”
Keeling and Akridge meet with Hatcher and Polak every other week but remain available each day for questions as they arise.
“A lot of my day to day, depends on what [requests] comes in,” Hatcher said. “If a student or faculty member had gone through the training for Modern Campus in order for them to update different pages on the website, I will make their account, get them setup, and add them to their site. If they want a staff page, calendar, news page, I will go in and make that for them.”
Along with creating the bones of a website and providing web and app support, Hatcher explained, “There are also tickets that can come in on the app. If there is a need to update [office] hours or dining location hours, I can get all of that updated.”
On the iWKU app, prospective students can find their schedule for Topper Orientation Program (TOP) and learn information about TOP Guides, and current students can access information about Athletics, health and wellness, and emergency contacts and procedures. The iWKU app is used often to access the Topper Transit bus schedule, parking availability, course schedules, and balances for dining and printing.
“You have to study the front end and back end of the app. You have to learn everything that connects the data to students and faculty. You have to learn how they intertwine - the different layers,” Polak explained.
Polak, who spends time developing software outside of his role as a student developer, shared how he enjoys learning more about software development on his own time as well. He began working with computer programming in high school, and therefore, knew years ago, that he wanted to pursue this field.
“I feel like a lot of the responsibilities in this role, they align well with my goals in the future. It has allowed me to work with different people and has helped advance my career,” Polak expressed. In addition, to web updates, Polak is learning Flutter [an open source framework for building applications from a single codebase] to be able to update the iWKU app and create the ability for the app to send notifications and deep linking within the app. He will graduate in May and plans to continue his education in computer science.
Hatcher will continue working as a student developer in ITS during his senior year with his main project being adding functionality to the iWKU app for trained users on campus to update their information. Out of the office, he studies for different certifications with hopes of working with Google. He sees how his experiences in web and app development continue to prepare him for the future.
“It has taught me so much about how to be able to really adapt in computer science because that is such an important skill to have - being able to teach myself different languages, different ways of developing in those languages, how to use different packages, all sorts of different things.” Hatcher said.
Inside the iWKU app, on the About page, users can find the names of each student developer of the last decade. To learn more about the iWKU app, visit https://www.wku.edu/its/iwku/.