Corrupting the Youth

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 23:59:59 -800

Instead of going to the office today, Alexis and I were guest lecturers at
Benson Polytechnic High School
in the Central East Side. As part of the National Engineers Month lectures,
the two of us spent the day talking to high school kids about how to get into
an engineering school, what it's like to study engineering, and how our lives
have been as yuppies straight out of college. In putting together our slide
show, Alexis and I discovered that we've had pretty much the opposite schooling
experiences: she left high school to ride horses; I became the uber hacker of
Menlo. I had computing experience since the late 1980s, she didn't even touch
one until her first year of college. So, it was very helpful to go to a class
and be able to explain to the students that dropping out and avoiding college
is a terrible idea, while at the same time connecting with the kids who have
been nerds forever. Though, I have to say that the school is a "magnet school"
for the technically oriented, thus making our job at least somewhat easier.