School's Liaison

Appeared in Volume 7/1, February 1994

One of my departmental duties is as school's liaison office. Unfortunately, this does not come with a military-style uniform, although a regulation 'Faculty of Engineering' sweater was issued to me a few months ago.

The job isn't particularly onerous, especially now that I've developed a monologue which can be recited whenever a school student (or student's parent) telephones. This witty routine contains the usual stuff about course structure, interwoven with an emotional subtext about the glories of computer science, and its dynamic relevance to The Real World (always said in upper case). Of course, I ensure that my words are enlightened by my profound love of research, and I always mention logic programming at least five times.

Recently, I've realised that my poetic verbal essay is erroneously based on the assumption that school kids are interested in the quality of our teaching and research. In actuality, their main concern is with jobs - how many jobs are there? (I've heard of 2 or 3); what sorts of jobs? (coding in programmer's sweat-shops mostly); how much do they pay? (how would I know, I'm a poverty-stricken lecturer).

The other question genre is more irritating - the 'How long before I'm an expert in X?' query (X is a logical variable in this context, not the GUI from Hell). X is often instantiated to virtual reality, which I pleasantly explain to be a psychological condition caused by an excess of academic life. Graphics gets a mention as well, usually after a film like 'Jurassic Park' has been heavily advertised on TV. Networking is a popular topic, mostly in relationship to hacking into bank accounts. Surprisingly, BASIC and spreadsheets also crop up, frequently requested by depressed school students ploughing through a computers course that's chained to a text from 1982.

A part of the job which I haven't had the privilege of experiencing is a visit to a school. Reports from my colleagues in other departments are not exactly enticing, unless you enjoy running bare foot over hot beds of coals, or dancing in snake pits. How soon we forget that the idiosyncrasies of university students are forged in the battlefields of school life. The worst thing is that I can remember how we treated the computer science lecturer who visited our school.

Andrew Davison