pancake bits
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Can’t effing wait to turn this private repo into a public one…
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“ Every student at Montclair State University in New Jersey must complete a computer science in order to graduate. For most students, that course is Introduction for Computer Applications: Being Fluent with Information Technology. (Music majors take Music and Computer Technology I.)
The course is designed to teach students majoring in subjects such as fashion, dance, or art history about network security, artificial intelligence, databases, and e-commerce, says Michael Oudshoorn, chairman of the computer science department at Montclair.
“It’s not aimed at making them experts; it’s aimed at making them aware,” Oudshoorn says. “They do live in a digital age … They have an obligation to know something about the technology.”
”—Computer Science Transitions From Elective to Requirement, USNews
H8rs gonna h8 on CMPT 109, but the increasing number of students that give us great feedback on the course proves its worth.
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This is my first time reppin’ CompSci and IT at a Majors/Minors Fair. I hope there are rides!
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There’ll be women at your event? Great! …oh.
The people over at Sqoot have pulled off a classy move with the promotional materials for their tech event, advertising it as featuring “everything awesome”—including massage, top-shelf booze and women.
We hopped over to investigate and asked their live chat about it.
Still insanely hoping for a world in which the idea of women being represented at a tech event isn’t a joke, ourselves.
You’d be surprised at how some guys in tech think it’s okay to make women at tech events out to be some sort of incentive (like “top shelf booze”) or a sideshow display.
Regardless of whether it’s a “joke” or not, if you advertise women as an incentive, your audience will have expectations of those women - and that can be a precursor to sexual abuse. Even if it doesn’t come to that, at the very least you managed to make someone feel small and like they do not belong.
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“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.” — Edsger Dijkstra -
“It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?” — Alan Perlis -
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Clarence “Skip” Ellis was the first African-American to earn a PhD in Computer Science. He helped develop the concept of clicking icons which lead to the development of user friendly operating systems such as Windows or Mac.
Most computer users, even highly proficient users, would not be able to operate their computer without this simple concept. Thank you, sir!Learn more about Dr. Ellis here. (via University of Buffalo)
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As Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe strolled her Southern California campus recently, she stopped to talk with Lillian de Greef, a senior eager to discuss her plans to pursue a graduate degree in computer science. De Greef entered Mudd as a technology novice and, like a growing number of women at the school, she’s now fluent in multiple programming languages. “I just really enjoy learning about all this stuff, writing the code,” she says.
De Greef’s enthusiasm is a testament to the quiet revolution waged by Klawe, 60, since she arrived in 2006 from Princeton University, where she was dean of the engineering school. On her watch, the percentage of female computer science majors at Mudd, one of California’s prestigious Claremont colleges, has more than tripled, to 42 percent. Nationally, women account for 14 percent of college graduates in the field, according to the Computing Research Association.
Harvey Mudd was already revamping its computer science curriculum when Klawe arrived, and she sped up the plans. Until 2005 the mandatory introductory computer science course taught the Java programming language, which has fallen out of favor with many modern developers. Novices were thrown in with experienced programmers, and in some years those who went on to pursue a computer science degree were 95 percent male.
The introductory course is now broken into three sections—one for those with some background in programming, another for beginners, and a third with a slant toward biology. “CS for Scientists,” as the introductory course is nicknamed, focuses on teaching problem-solving skills that can be applied to engineering, math, and other subjects. Instead of Java, the class uses the Python language, which has simpler rules and is easier to deploy in Web applications. One of the overarching goals is to “demystify the inner workings of a computer,” according to the course website.
I met Maria Klawe briefly after she gave a keynote at the Grace Hopper conference in 2007. She is great, and this photo of her is great.
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Background reading: Code by Charles Petzold.
Right ok what I’m doing here is just going back to basics and going over machiney lanuagy stuff starting with 0s and 1s.
Should be easy right?
Have any of you read this book? What did you think?
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“We need to get girls interested in computing by first grade. By fifth grade, it’s game over. Computing has an image crisis. A boy geek subculture has grown up around gaming that involves violence. It’s not something little girls aspire to. It’s not about lack of educational opportunities for women. Smart girls graduate from high school with straight A’s, go to college, and find themselves surrounded by guys who’ve been hacking for 10 years. So they’re way behind. They get discouraged, and go into law or medicine.” — Audrey MacLean, Why Women Have an Advantage in Technology (NYT)(via webstartwomen)
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Why would-be Engineers end up as English majors I’ve said it before…Engineering school is not easy!! You gotta stick with it!!
“Undergraduates across the country are choosing to leave science, technology, engineering and math programs before they graduate with those degrees. Many students in those STEM fields struggle to complete their degrees in four years, or drop out, according to a 2010 University of California, Los Angeles, study.”
I just wrote about this video on pancake theorem, talking about how grades hinder innovation and creativity and, as a result, STEM.
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In which a matchbook predicts the founding of Microsoft.
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(via fuckyeahcomputerscience)
