1. Improving the Appeal of Computing Gabriel J. Ferrer Hendrix College ferrer@hendrix.edu

2. “A Pump, not a Filter” Philosophy of St. Olaf’s Math dept: –http://www.aacu.org/aacu_news/AACUNews0 7/November07/feature.cfmhttp://www.aacu.org/aacu_news/AACUNews0 7/November07/feature.cfm Filter: sift out all but the strongest students Pump: Infuse new students and new interests into the field Do CS programs tend more towards “filter” or “pump”?

3. More About St. Olaf “…we’d like everyone to be a math major! We want to open the doors to all students, not just the A students.” “We don’t try to convince first-year students in their first math class to major in math…” “It’s mostly a matter of allowing the subject to sell itself” 3000 undergraduate students –10% are Math majors –More students go on to earn PhD in Math than any other liberal arts college in USA

4. Strict Course Sequencing Is strict course sequencing necessary? –Courses could be offered by topic and difficulty –Seems to work in Philosophy Prereq: One previous course in Philosophy Could CS courses be structured this way? One small step in this direction –Zero-prereq Robotics course –Sequel: Advanced Robotics Prereqs: Robotics or CS1 CS2 prereqs: CS1 or Advanced Robotics

5. Some imaginable steps further 100 level courses –Robotics –Web programming –3D graphics –Interface design 200 level courses –Advanced versions of each –Interchangeable prerequisites

6. Observations from Experience Robotics course at Hendrix This year: –3 completely full sections, 16 students each –Undergraduate population: 1200 –About 4% of student body If repeated annually: –16% of students willingly study programming –At a liberal arts college!

7. Questions for Discussion Could this approach attract “artistic” students who normally avoid CS? Would this approach necessarily compromise rigor? What, precisely, is the importance of rigor? What would an upper-level curriculum look like? What other trade-offs are there?