TITLE: Unexpected Computer Science Reference AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford DATE: August 22, 2008 4:39 PM DESC: ----- 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. -----