CS 1944: Computer Science First Year Seminar
Spring 2012

Course Objectives

1. Prepare students to succeed in the major.
   • Give an overview of the CS major and discipline.
   • Answer questions: "What kinds of courses can I expect? What are my choices? When will I get to the cool stuff?"
   • Give pointers to some useful skills and tools.
   • Practice working in groups.

2. Prepare students to succeed in starting a career or in going to graduate school.
   • Give an overview of the computing field and of career options.
   • Build confidence and experience in resume preparation, attending job fairs, interacting with companies.

3. Build community. Get to know one another.

Schedule

Week	Date	Speaker	Topic
1	01/17/12	CS Ambassadors	Welcome and overview
2	01/24/12	Katie Steuer	Career Services: overview of Career Services, resume prep [pdf]
3	01/31/12	Cal Ribbens	CS@VT curriculum, outcomes, big picture, tracks, minors, ... [pdf]
4	02/07/12	Claire Childress	Career Services: preparing for career fairs and interviewing [pdf]
5	02/14/12	CSRC panel	Perspectives from corporate partners
6	02/21/12	Cal Ribbens	KID, Software Engineering, Systems
7	02/28/12	CS Ambassadors	Perspectives from current seniors
8	03/13/12	No regular class meeting	Etiquette dinner --- 6:00 p.m., Owens Banquet Hall
9	03/20/12	Doug Bowman	HCI and Creative Computing [pdf]
10	03/27/12	Steve Campbell	Perspectives from an alum --- Steve Campbell
11	04/03/12	Yang Cao	Computational Biology & Bioinformatics and Scientific Computing
12	04/10/12	Barbara Ryder	Perspectives from the Department Head
13	04/17/12	No regular class meeting	Cool Topics Fair --- 7:00-8:30 p.m., Torgersen Museum
14	04/24/12	James (Jim) L. Sowder	Perspectives from an employer (Northrop Grumman)
15	05/01/12	No class meeting

Deliverables and Grading

Due	Points	Description
	12	Class attendance: no more than two unexcused absences at regular class meetings. Each absence after two costs 4 points.
Feb 6	10	Elevator speech --- schedule your group here. You will receive a confirmation email from Ms. Bradford regarding the time to show up at McBryde 114.
Feb 8	10	Resume: upload to the CSRC portal before 5:00 p.m., Feb 8.
Feb 13	15	Attend the CSRC Career Fair (Feb 13, 3-7 p.m.) and speak with a representative of at least 5 companies. Get company reps to initial next to their company's name on the card provided when you check in at the fair and turn in this card.
Mar 13	8	Etiquette dinner: arrive by 6:00 p.m., Owens Banquet Hall
Apr 17	16	Cool topic handout and presentation --- topic must be approved by Dr. Ribbens by March 2. A list of the topics approved so far.
Apr 24	5	Cool topic group evaluation. See description at class Scholar site.
May 2	12	Attend two company presentations --- write a summary paragraph on each
May 2	12	Attend two technical talks or Career Services events, i.e., one of each or two of one kind and zero of the other. For each, write a summary paragraph of the presentation, including something you learned and any helpful critiques you can suggest to improve the presentation. Your writing will be assessed for these paragraphs.