TITLE: Unexpected Computer Science Reference
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: August 22, 2008 4:39 PM
DESC:
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BODY:
Today I'm listening to the August 21 episode of The
Bob and Tom Show, a syndicated morning radio show.
One of the guests on this episode is comedian
Dwayne Perkins.
There I was working on my previous entry when I hear
Perkins say "I was a computer science student in
college...". Surprise! Of course, the reference
was part of a skit on his dating life and ended up
mentioning a preponderance of Asian-American males
in his classes, but still.
I don't know if CS plays any role in his comedy more
generally, but he at least is tech-savvy enough to
have a
blog
with both discursive entries and short videos.
I'm guessing that it's a good thing to have a
performer say "computer science" every so often as
part of his work. Whatever he says about CS, people
aren't likely to remember much of the content, but
they might remember hearing the words "computer
science". Something that puts our discipline in the
mainstream may well help demythologize it.
Coincidentally, I heard this episode on a day when we
did final registration for fall courses, and every
introductory programming course we offer is full.
This includes our intro course for majors, which is
a good 50% larger than last year, and non-majors
courses in VB and C++. Perhaps the tide has turned.
Or perhaps some of the efforts we have mad in the
last three years are beginning to pay off.
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