Slashdot Mirror
Kernighan Teaches... Liberal Arts?
Flamerule writes "The New York Times has an article (free registration required) examining a new course Brian Kernighan is teaching at Princeton, called "Computers in Our World", aimed at liberal arts students who won't be going into the tech field. The author describes it as "a kind of intellectual smorgasbord, combining public policy - like technology's impact on privacy, copyright and antitrust matters - with large helpings of practical knowledge of how things work, from operating systems to disk drives." The K&R text is mentioned, though not as reverently as some would demand."
As noted in the article, upon explanation of the inner workings of a computer and that it just manipulates bits really fast, one of the students said he had an "aha" revelation. This is the kind of thing that should be taught to everyone in school.
Dinking with Word and Paint, don't de-mystify the machine. Only by having a basic (no pun intended) understanding of the machine and what it does will a person be willing to control it. So many folks that have computers are so intimidated by them that they are afraid to control the machine. Changing fundamental settings like wallpaper truly scares some people. (Insert gratuitous MS slam here)
Equally important is the discussion and enlightenment these students will get on matters of copyright, law as it is being applied to computing, and patents. Only a well informed citizenry will prevent the spate of knee-jerk reactions to minor problems. Perhaps a well educated citizenry will clean up the ridiculous mess that is the DMCA and software patents.
I hope This kind of course gets cloned and used in education everywhere. It's desperately needed.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result."
I'm mainly just writing this to see if I can, since /. seems to be borken, judging by the number of comments on each story.
So, what to say ?
You see a lot of "old time" computer programmers slowing down these days- it's sort of sad. It shows us that however brilliant we are at programming there will come a time when we have to slow down.
The difference between true greats and us (if you consider yourself a "true great" then apologies, and "fuck you!") is that when they slow down they are still brilliant enough and have enough energy to change the world, either through writing, or lectures.
Does anyone know of any great programmers who are old, say over 60 ? I would be interested. Probably some people who are really famous are that old, but I just didn't realize their age....
graspee
All the computing sector needs is an influx of people who think they know something about computers.
These people get a government job, and start telling their contractors what to do and how to do it
This courses introduction should be "Here is what real software engineers do (insert comlex UML diagram here), and this course won't prepare you to even get there."
I think this class is a good idea. RMS would be a perfect guest speaker for the class. Though a polarizing figure for some, he might be able to emphasize the importance of free software.
I attend both MIT and Stanford and found the MIT students to be more informed about everything than the Stanford or Harvard students. MIT requires a minimum of two years of science and math courses (most take much more), while the other two schools much less than that. You could talk about anything with MIT students at late night dorm sessions- technology, politics, literature, philosophy, social action, etc. The other places the students werent as widely knowledgeable. They would intentionally avoid technology and philosphy.
at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. It was called Computers in Society and we covered various issues like privacy, copyright issues, security, business on the web, the impact of computers' advancement on warfare and others (we had a list of like 11 subjects that we covered during the semester).
Class itself was kind of interesting. Rather than the teacher lecturing, we broke up into 6 groups. Each week, two groups would do presentations based on research they did into the topic. The next class meeting (we met 2x a week), the groups would face off in a debate on the issues. This was kind of tough, because invariably we all wanted to argue the same side. This approach was really good though, because it forced the presenters to do their own research and find out things for themselves. It was sometimes not so good for the rest of the class, as an incomplete presentation wouldn't give you as much information.
The only drawback to this class was that it was a 3000-level computer science course (equivalent of a 300-level course, I guess), and so we had only comp. sci. majors in there.
This is an excellent idea though, since it will give people a chance to really learn about topics that ordinarily they might avoid, but will certainly impact them in the future.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
*sighs because it feels like I'm feeding a troll*
Yes, we still have some privacy, and I agree that we have less than we did before, but more importantly, we have an ever-increasing awareness in the general population that privacy is important, and that some people are pushing the pendulum too far to one side in the name of: 1. security; 2. increased profits; 3. (insert your reason here).
When people realize that there is a difference between privacy and anonymity, when people realize that they are giving away rights they took for granted, and when they (collectively) get concerned enough to complain in a loud, clear and compelling voice, then maybe we can push the pendulum back to the other side, or at least back to the middle, where it belongs.
Teaching classes like this is a great way to empower people outside of the tech/geek population.
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
There is only one culture, and if you can't discourse on the structure of a sonnet and the second law of thermodynamics with equal ease, then you're uncultured, period.
... well, in its hegemonic stature. Edward Said -- much as I find his 'Orientalism' shrill and oftentimes difficult to read -- has (I think) some valid concerns about the 'Westernization' of cultural ideas and the dangers of unbidden (or uncritical) hegemony.
Interesting. I agree with your notion about a single culture.
But the idea that you -- or anyone -- picks a single thing out of the culture and says, well, if you don't know this thing, you're uncultured -- well, this is bad. I agree, though, in an ideal world we should be able to discourse on the structure of a sonnet and the second law of thermodynamics. But I disagree with the idea that if you don't know these two things, you're uncultured.
This reminds me of the so-called 'culture wars' that went on several years ago. Roger Shattuck, Dinish D'Souza (sp?), Roger Kimball -- everybody was chiming in with lists of stuff. You gotta know about the Spanish Armada, about Amerigo Vespucci. You gotta know what country wrote the 'Lusiads' and why, in the history of poetry (and exploration) why the Lusiads are important.
My concern with all this -- and I haven't yet made up my mind how best to approach it -- is that when we start talking about "lists" or about "stuff we need to know, or else", we're often blindsided by a kind of subconscious -- or silent -- xenophobia. The stuff we need to know is largely "Western" -- both in its cultural orientation and in its
So as not to venture too far off-topic, I'd say that while I agree with your general idea of diversity among the disciplines, I'd like to see it pushed even farther -- but not too far, not so far that, suddenly, the same ol' moral relativism looms and threatens to say, well, everybody's right, no one's right, and the oppressed are *really* right. I'm not sure where to draw the line.
But I think in addition to science and math, most students (IMHO) simply need to READ more. Novels, poetry, biography. Read, read, read. Whatever. But be unrelenting in your reading. Pursue stuff in college that you never thought you'd read.
If you're a reader, you learn how to become a critical thinker -- and this skill -- critical thinking -- is equally important across all disciplines: math, science, literature, philosophy, you name it.
It's nice to know stuff. And it's nice to think that you know the right stuff. But unless you're equipped to think about what you know -- and play the complex game of mental-connect-the-dots -- it's easy enough to discourse on the sonnet, discourse on the second law of thermodynamics, discourse on the mystical nature of the Kaballah and not realize that all three of things and more -- you name it -- are all, somehow, somewhere connected.
Im a lab TA for this course, which means that I have scheduled hours in one of the labs where students can come in and work on the projects with someone there to give them help. What Ive seen so far is that the original intentions of the people signing up for this course is to use it as a gut, but now at the half way point their learning alot and they all have a better grasp of how the computer, and their browser in particular, works to display what's on their screen. For example for the first couple weeks most questions were just confusion about things like where the files were supposed to go, and how to open and save documents. Now everyone seems to have a strong grasp on the basics and their questions really show that they understand what's being thrown at them.
--aiee