Saturday, May 25, 2013

An Unusual CS Student Blog

As I'm up working/watching a Memorial Day weekend Arrested Development marathon (OK, I'm not working that hard), I found myself wandering over to Justine Bateman's blog.  Like many teens at that time period, I surely had a crush on her during her run on Family Ties.  So I had noticed that last year she had decided to go back to school to study computer science (UCLA -- college to the stars-interested-in-math-and-science, apparently;  I'm talking about you Mayim Blalik and Danica McKellar!).  But I hadn't been reading the blog.  And it's very entertaining, if only because it sounds like a freshman college blog, albeit occasionally with some pointers you might not normally find (like interviews for LA magazines).    This post, about finishing up a big project (making a computer Battleship game), is really familiar to me in tone;  I hear stuff like this from students all the time (and, of course, lived through it myself as an undergraduate). 

The point here -- besides that I now watch and have always watched too much TV -- is that computer science is awesome.*  Awesome enough that a big star of the 1980s has gotten inspired enough to go back to school and learn how to program Battleship, and more.

*And I guess another lesson is that Justine Bateman is awesome too.  Not that she'll ever see this, but Justine -- best of luck to you sophomore year and beyond!   

1 comment:

Adam Smith said...

I can't condone your taste in TV shows, but Bateman's blog is an interesting read (as you say, it mixes the familiar with the very strange-to-me).

Bateman's blog has a neat, original angle: she includes lots of mini-bios of women taking on new academic challenges later in life. One of them's in your backyard (or just, your Yard?):

"Everyone, meet Jenn Ashton, a 49-year old studying Computer Science at Harvard."

http://getacollegelife.tumblr.com/post/47345106953/everyone-meet-jenn-ashton-a-49-year-old-studying