Getting high school students interested in Computer Science

[Tony]

Hey guys,

I've got a PM from S?ren, a Computer Science student in Denmark who, along with other students in his department, does presentations at local high schools to get students interested in pursuing CS. It's a pretty sweet idea, and I was hoping of doing the same locally, at some point. He's looking for some suggestions for material to present about though.

Quote:

I have one idea that might work:
- Investigate "community based" algorithms of Social Networks, Amazon Recommendations etc.

This is a very rich topic that can relate to
- Algorithms, Data Structures, Complexity Theory, Heuristics etc.
showing the
- Richness and diversity of Computer Science
- Practical usage of the theory on problems people can relate to.

Do you have any other ideas of what a 1-2 hour introduction to Computer Science could contain?

I'm visiting family in Europe, and have scarce internet access. If you guys have any feedback for S?ren, or for a future project we can take on ourselves, share your ideas here.

[jernst]

I find people get interested when you can provide them with cool applications of computer science. I visited a bunch of labs at various universities when applying for grad school and found the best ones were the places that showed off their work and talked about where they saw their field in the next few years. Perhaps you could bring along some demos to show off and try to give some basic explanations on how they work.

Also it may be good to talk about how CS is involved in many other disciplines to get people interested in trying it. You might have a lot of students who are more into other things like chemistry, medicine, physics, even subjects like music and visual arts but may also be interested in a computer science course or two when they realize it may help them down the road.

I think the high school talks are a good idea. Its a shame more people aren't interested in CS.

[Vermette]

In addition to visiting high schools, we've also invited local high schools to visit our department on field trip to tour our facilities and see some of the things we do.

Over the summer we've also been running some day camps for younger (12-15) kids with things like Lego Mindstorm robots, Kodu Game Lab, etc..