Tue Sep 16 09:54:08 EDT 2008
Take the absolute numbers with a grain of salt; I got pretty punchy counting things.
Class: 24 freshmen, 35 sophomores, 23 juniors, 32 seniors, 10 community auditors. With 120 responses (out of about 130 registered at this instant):
Your major or likely or possible major, generally counting only the first when people listed multiple options.
19 POL, 14 HIS, 11 UNK, 11 ENG, 10 ECO, 8 SOC, 5 WWS, 5 COM, 4 REL, 4 PSY, 4 GER, 4 ART, 4 ART, 3 CLA, 3 ARC, 2 ORF, 2 MUS, 2 MAE, 2 EEB, 2 ANT 1 SPA, 1 PHI, 1 NES, 1 FRE, 1 EAS, 1 AST
Your life outside class, e.g., sport, music, theater, service, Prince, sleep, ...:
Lots of sports, both varsity and club, followed closely by a very wide variety of service activities, music in its myriad forms, writing in various venues, theater and dance and the like, work, and (wishful thinking, I suspect) sleep. This year had more people mentioning thesis, which is likely an accurate assessment of where the time will go. A word of warning for anyone with heavy time commitments, especially if they involve travel: there are weekly problem sets and labs in 109, and you only get two extensions, so please plan ahead.
Your computer experience: none 16 a little 50 some 48 a lot 3
What kind of computer do you have? PC 58 Mac 64
This is the first time that Macs have out-numbered PCs. We'll talk about some of the technical similarities and differences in hardware and software, while mostly ducking the esthetic issues.
Who is your cell phone provider? AT&T 41 Verizon 62 T-Mobile 6 Sprint 8
How happy are you with them? reasonably happy 102 pretty unhappy 17
T-Mobile and Sprint are losing ground to AT&T and Verizon. There was a noticeable correlation between Sprint and unhappy, but otherwise carrier and happiness seemed less correlated than last year. We might talk about a potential reason.
Are there any topics you would especially like to hear about in class?
Security and privacy issues and viruses: we'll get to them mostly when we do communications. Programming will be covered both in class and in the labs; you won't be a programmer by the end, but it should be non-mysterious. Web design: the early labs will do the basics. Among the others, how various devices work, digital music, cell phones, file-sharing, cryptography, and search engines -- all of these will be included. There will also be on-going discussion of social and legal issues related to all of the above, especially copyright and other forms of intellectual property. I'm not going to do anything very "vocational", but the labs provide a chance to learn some specific skills; for example, one is a decent intro to Excel.
We'll have to see how the labs work out. The distribution is not very uniform, and of course we'll get killed if everyone shows up for any session. I am still in negotation with the registar's office about space for Monday and Tuesday evenings. The numbers are the sum of first and second choices. There will be no Friday evening lab; it was kind of a wild idea anyway.
| Monday | 1:30-4:20 PM 21 | 7:30-10:20 PM 43 |
| Tuesday | 1:30-4:20 PM 32 | 7:30-10:20 PM 25 |
| Wednesday | 1:30-4:20 PM 13 | 7:30-10:20 PM 25 |
| Thursday | 1:30-4:20 PM 25 | 7:30-10:20 PM 14 |
| Friday | 1:30-4:20 PM 15 | 7:30-10:20 PM 6 |