The next CAT Braindump Orientation is on October 10th, 2025.

Your first step towards becoming a CAT is to attend the next Braindump Orientation in the Fall of 2025. Sign up to receive notifications about the Braindump Orientation by logging into your PSU email account and clicking the button below.

Any PSU student can join the CAT, regardless of major, background, or prior experience. Come by to see what we’re all about!

TheCAT is the Computer Action Team: a self-selected group of student volunteers from diverse majors and backgrounds who learn, grow, and innovate together on the systems in the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science (MCECS).

The CAT is managed by the Director of Computing for MCECS and consists of a team of volunteers, student workers, and a handful of full-time employees. With the guiding hand of experienced veterans in the IT industry, students are given license to make connections and shape the organization for years to come.

TheCAT maintains user services in MCECS via front desk duty carried out by student volunteers in FAB 82-01. Volunteers gain experience in handling support tickets, managing labs, assisting faculty and staff, and engaging in various team projects.

TheCAT manages a centrally administered but distributed network of Linux and Windows systems that span many buildings on campus. Volunteers have the opportunity to assist in systems administration and configuration, software installation, user account management, and fast-paced collaborative problem solving.

TheCAT also runs the MCECS network at PSU, providing the connectivity to ensure all internal systems work together as well as a critical role in the external network connectivity of the University.

Additionally, theCAT has a number of teams that facilitate internal growth and strengthen communication with all of MCECS and the greater PSU campus. They provide volunteers the opportunity to gain skills such as leadership, public speaking, technical writing, graphic design, and video editing.

The Braindump is an intensive 15-month informal volunteer program that combines weekly lecture, hands-on training, group collaboration, mandatory onsite frontline duty, and individual discovery within the context of our full-scale IT organization.

Volunteers gain a varied arsenal of technical, communication, and administrative skills that can fill up a resume. Some attain positions of leadership in various teams. All gain a diverse community of friends and professional connections that will last beyond PSU.

Our continually evolving collection of topics include:

• CAT IT infrastructure
• User services
• Platform-specific user level and systems administration stuff for:
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Networking
• Hardware management and troubleshooting
• App development (web/database)
• DevOps

Volunteers can also engage in non-platform track areas:

• Technical writing
• Graphic design
• Public speaking/communications
• Project management
• Video production

We ask that you fill out the CAT application and send it to us by the following Friday, October 18, 2024, which is our Induction Day. You must have submitted your application and attended the induction session in order join the CAT.

Email us at topdog@cat.pdx.edu and ask us for an application if you don’t have an active PSU Odin account.

If you have questions, please send e-mail to support@cat.pdx.edu or call 503-725-5420.