Randy Pausch: Dare I Call Him a Hero?

I picked up Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture on a whim this past weekend. I started reading it last night and got halfway through. I would have read the whole thing if it weren't for the fact that my keratoconic eyes can only take so much. I want to call Randy my new hero, but he admits in his book that he has suffered from being too self-praising in the past, so dare I say it? :)

The idea behind this book is centered on the fact that Randy, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, is dying of pancreatic cancer. He had been asked to give a lecture at Carnegie Mellon's "Journeys" series, once named the "Last Lecture Series." He had accepted, being optimistic about his latest treatments, but when he learned that these had not worked, he had to consider very carefully his course of action. If he had only months to live, should he be spending every last second with his wife and three children? Or would giving this lecture leave just the sort of legacy he wanted for those kids?

Needless to say, he ended up giving the lecture, focusing it not on his dying, but on how he fulfilled all of his childhood dreams. You can learn all about this lecture, and even watch it, on Carnegie Mellon's web page about it.

I actually haven't watched the lecture yet. I am saving it for when I finish the book, and when I know I have a contiguous chunk of time to devote to watching it. The book isn't a transcription of the lecture, as I first assumed it would be. Instead, it's a collection of stories and advice from Randy, from what it was like to growing up to how he wooed the woman who eventually became his wife.

One of my favorite stories was about how much he admired Captain Kirk, and how he always dreamed of actually being Kirk. That didn't exactly come true, but something better happened. William Shatner visited Randy's virtual reality lab in the 90's when he (Shatner) was co-authoring a book about the now-realized technologies first imagined on Star Trek. Shatner was thrilled to find a virtual recreation of the bridge of the Enterprise, turbolift doors and all. Randy was so impressed that Shatner asked so many questions about it, completely willing to admit exactly what he didn't know, and not willing to leave until he understood it. I can only imagine how much it meant to Randy to receive a signed photo of Shatner as Kirk that read "I don't believe in the no-win scenario." Shatner had sent it when he learned of Randy's cancer.

There are so many stories like this that you have to wonder how one person could be so lucky (for fulfilling so many dreams and having such success, not for getting cancer!). But it's important to notice that luck had nothing to do with it. Randy always persisted, never giving up on those childhood dreams. Granted, his upbringing likely had something to do with it, but through these stories it's clear that we are all capable of doing the same. If you aren't inspired by Randy, then I hate to inform you, but you probably have no hope!

One of Randy's projects had touched and inspired me before I even knew he was responsible for it. I first found Alice while putting together my mini-course. I didn't end up using it because I didn't think one week was long enough (and of that week, less than half was used for lab time anyway). But I did tell my students about it, should they be interested in giving it a try. I showed them the promotional video on the web page. I know at least a few of them were pretty excited by the prospect of programming something in 3D and probably played with it a bit at home. The whole concept of Alice as a way to get underrepresented students succeeding in computer science is so exciting, falling exactly in line with one of my greatest passions.

I know I'm not the only one inspired by this funny and charming computer scientist, but if you haven't been yet, then what are you waiting for? Go buy The Last Lecture and get reading! You won't regret it. Just be careful about how much you praise him in case his ego gets too big. ;)

Mini-Course: Content Available

I have decided to make the content from my mini-course available, with the hope that it may help others prepare for similar courses, or be inspired to do so. If you would like to use my materials, all I ask is that you contact me to ask for permission, and give credit where credit is due.

While my course was designed for young female students, there are ways to modify it for different gender and age mixes. I should caution as well that these slides don't capture the class discussions, all the activities, and so on, but they still give a good idea on the general outline of the content.

You can check out the mini-course page on my portfolio website to download the package I gave out on CD to my students (includes slides, links, and other info, but not the software installers or movies their version had). Be sure to run minibrowser.exe to get the full experience.

Portfolio Updates

I added a few things here and there on my portfolio website. Of particular interest is my term project for the medical computing class I took this past semester. I did an implementation for reconstructing polygonal slices taken from, say, an MRI scan. I also added slides from the presentations I did in that class, as well as some work for the applied computational geometry class I took (included there is a survey on Delaunay triangulations with some interesting applications).

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

While at the Anita Borg Scholar's Retreat at Google New York, I learned about an exciting event that I knew I had to attend. It's called the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and is "a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront." That's right, a whole four days of conference designed specifically for women in computing! How could I miss out?

The bad news is that getting there could be pretty darned expensive. The flight to Denver from Ottawa alone could cost over $800, and then you have to consider the shuttle bus to the resort, the hotel room for four nights, and the event registration costs.

But don't worry, there are ways to get there that you, too, can take advantage of! Here at Carleton, there are several girls trying to get our school's chapter of the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) group up and running again. Attending this conference would be hugely beneficial to WISE, since we would have the opportunity to be meeting and networking with the best of the best, and those who've been there before us. Because the timing is just right, we are trying very hard to find all the sources of financial support we can.

The first place to look is the official scholarship the conference organizers put together. You can apply online here, but you have to hurry: the deadline is mid-June and you need reference letters and an essay. You can also volunteer some of your time to have the registration costs waived. Then, you can ask your supervisor for support (if you happen to be a grad student), and check with the administrators of your department. You can also see if your school has something similar to Carleton's Student Activity Fund. Finally, you can check with local companies or your past employers.

I don't know yet whether I will be able afford to get there, and I won't for a while yet. My fingers are crossed that it all works out!

Affirmative Action?

Last week, I bought, downloaded, and watched an interesting documentary called Indoctrinate U. The film was political, so I won't mention much about it here. But there was one topic that got me thinking: affirmative action. In the film's case, the discussion centered more around racial issues, but the same ideas apply to gender.

The big question for us is this: Do we want technology employers to attempt hiring more women to promote equality and/or diversity?

In my opinion, definitely not.

There is only one situation where hiring a woman because she's a woman makes sense to me, and that is when the range of candidates are narrowed down to a few that have no distinguishing skills, and differ only by sex. If there aren't very many females on the team already, and having some different viewpoints and ideas would benefit this team, then by all means go for the woman! (You can make the same argument for other groups of people as well, depending on the makeup you currently have and the diversity you are looking for.)

But to specifically look for women to hire simply because you don't have very many? There are plenty of women who can get in by their merit alone, so doing this not only undermines that fact, but increases the probability of not finding the best people for the job.

You might say that no employers actively seek minorities in this way. If that were true, would there be diversity competitions like this? Or assertions that a "union has to make a conscious effort to want to hire women and minorities" (source)?

But don't get me wrong. Trying to make your workplace friendly and welcoming to minorities like women is not a bad thing. Just let them come on their own if they are interested, and evaluate them on merit alone. Don't hire a woman so you can meet your diversity quota this year.

The same line of thinking can apply to university admissions. I'm not sure if the same thing happens in Canada, but it seems in the States (according to Indoctrinate U) that affirmative action can sometimes favor visible minorities to increase diversity on campus. Not good! I know that we have work to do in our School of Computer Science to make it more appealing for women to join us both as students and as faculty, but we certainly should not start bringing women in just for the numbers. Luckily, I have not seen any evidence that anyone here has tried this, or wants to.

You may have seen my previous post that mentioned the Women in Science and Engineering group I'm helping rebuild. You may be wondering why, as a member of this group, I am against seeking out women to join our school. Well, my goals with that group are not to increase our numbers in the way described above, but rather to show women who may have already been interested in the subject but were too afraid to give it a try just how rewarding it can be. I also want to make the atmosphere and support network better for the women already here, hoping to increase their chances of success. I do believe their is a difference, however subtle it may seem.