Designing CS101: From Causes to Learning Obstacles

Let's recap the process of designing a learning experience for introducing computer science to non-CS students. What mistake is the target audience making that they care about? I chose "many people are missing out on a satisfying career." Why do they make this mistake? There are many causes, especially sociological ones, but I chose "people don't get to see what computer scientists actually do." They may take a programming course, often with "exciting" assignments like printing an amortization table. They may someone in a movie or TV show rapidly typing cryptic text on a computer screen. They may get to take a course programming games or robots. Unfortunately, none of these are accurate depictions of what we spend our days doing in CS, namely coming up with new ideas for old problems, or even better, new problems. For me, the neat part of CS is that I get to come up with ideas that may change the world. I can do it with surprisingly small resources, compared to other transformational disciplines like medical research.

Sp now the question is to identify why a learning experience is needed. You don't need course for walking, ordering food in a restaurant, going to school, playing videogames, etc. You learn these and many other things by watching other people do it, and/or trying to do it yourself and learning from failure. We only need courses when this natural process doesn't work. That might be because there's no one to watch, e.g., a master violinist practicing techniques, or learning from failure is not an option, e.g., brain surgery, or a handful of other reasons.

So why don't people learn what computer scientists really do naturally? I think it's pretty clear that it's because there's no opportunity. Most people don't mix with computer scientists doing their job. TV doesn't show it because there's nothing to watch. An intro programming course doesn't help, because programming, while critically important, is not the career. If you don't get people to understand being a doctor or medical researcher by making them take an anatomy course!

So I'm going to answer the third question with this: "people don't get to see what CS is really like simply because there's no opportunity to be exposed to people doing CS."