2005 May 20
Drawn by the lure of free pizza and the chance to unravel such mysteries as "What Happens After You Click 'Send'?" about 120 Grade 9 and 10 kids and parents, some from as far away as Owen Sound, recently attended the first Computer Science for You@Waterloo Day.
Professors Ashraf Aboulnaga and Shai Ben-David organized the event, assisted by enthusiastic staff and student volunteers. According to Ben-David, their motivation was twofold: "First, kids in high school here have an impression that computer science is about programming and applications like Microsoft Office, but they are unaware of the real breadth and depth of the research that they can get involved in. The other part of it was that, concretely, we are facing a decline in computer science enrollment. This region has a big pool of talented kids that we would like to attract." Activities included a hands-on robot simulation, and faculty talks that explored the diversity of computer science. "Awesome!" enthused one participant. Given the event's success, there are plans to repeat it, and to hold one this fall for 11th and 12th graders considering University studies at Waterloo.
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
Tel: 519-888-4567 x33293
Fax: 519-885-1208
Contact | Feedback: newseditor@cs.uwaterloo.ca | David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science | Faculty of Mathematics
Last modified: Thursday, 06-Oct-2005 14:30:26 EDT
