Inside a top-floor classroom in downtown Rock Hill, Matt Johnston is describing a website he developed for a local tourism agency.
"We've been learning about code re-usability," Johnston tells an audience of 15 fellow students, pointing to a flat-screen TV showing his work.
"Back in the old days, if you wanted one page of coding, you had to put in one page. Now we're using templating and reusable codes."
Sound like a foreign language? It's part of the lingo at The Hive, a tech-savvy center where college students learn to become independent contractors in web marketing and design.
When you step into the ultra-modern space on the third floor of the Citizens building, you hear terms such as "wire frames" and "code re-usability" as students describe their tasks.
The language sounds unusual, but the work is real.
Students create websites for local clients ranging from a children's nonprofit to a medical supplier, candy store and furniture refinishing business.
They're even working on a to-go menu for Citizens Corner restaurant on the ground floor.
"It's cool that the project always has an outcome," said Johnston, a third-year student at York Technical College. "You're given some creative license. It makes it feel like it's important."
The program seeks to inspire young people to pursue careers in Rock Hill after they graduate, said York Tech President Greg Rutherford. If nothing else, it will bring 30 students to Main Street on a daily basis.
City Council members budgeted $70,000 over two years to help launch The Hive in January as a partnership with locally owned RevenFlo marketing, York Tech and Winthrop University.
The space offers impressive views of Rock Hill and draws enough natural light through big windows to make overhead lights unnecessary.
It also showcases the youthful, "creative class" demographic that Rock Hill wants to cultivate. Students bustle about the space, working on computers and hanging out on sofas.
Ayana Lewis designed a site for the Children's Attention Home, a Rock Hill nonprofit for abused and neglected children.
"My content section is a bit old school," Lewis told students. "I should have broken it up into more sections and put in more links."
Student-produced artwork lines the walls showing graphic images of bees and hives, playing off the center's theme as a hub for activity.
Jodi Turner, a student at York Technical College, researched local landmarks and created Facebook and Twitter pages as part of her team's tourism Web project.
"I've lived here my entire life and didn't know half the stuff until I went out and started looking," she said. "Now it's our job to get other people interested."
