Adventures in CS-112: earthexe Takes an Introductory Computer Science Class

Every Monday and Wednesday, class takes place in an actual lecture room. It's the same room where I attend lecture for my other computer science course, where I'm learning how to program in assembly language. It's a very different environment.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the class has a "lab" period in a different room, full of beautiful dual-monitored windows 7 machines, Complete with a wonderfully organized server in the next room over. Really, it's great... or, it would be, if the professor didn't use this time for more lectures for me to zonk out on. We seem to only every use them on Thursdays, to do things like download a pdf from a website, and then open it. Or learn how to format an Excel spreadsheet. This week, we are going to have our first graded assignment in this room, and indeed the entire quarter so far. It's a test, on paper.

At the end of every day, we are reminded to "Study, study, study" for the test, which is good advice for those who don't already know how Microsoft Word works, perhaps a grand total of two or three people in this class full of people who declared Computer Science as their major. Right now, I'm using this time to type out this story while the professor rigorously describes over-the-shoulder password security breaches, while everyone else fiddles with their phones hidden behind the wide berth of double monitors.

The first lab we did was at least a little interesting; we were instructed on how to use PuTTY. I had used it before this lecture, so, that's great an all. It's just not something I would expect given the surrounding curriculum. We downloaded a congratulatory message from the server. The next two labs followed similarly simple tasks, which we were given all of 50 minutes to do. He'd let us do our thing for a while, but then a good 20 minutes in, the professor gave us an important reminder.



I was already finished with the task. I couldn't see anybody working on it, really. But then he saw my monitor, and informed me that I had skipped a part of the task, which was to change the default colors of the PuTTY terminal as I booted it up. Why would I want to do that? The default colors are just fine. But apparently I should be able to customize my experience to be whatever I wanted it to be, and I should know how to do that. Manditorily.

So I changed the text color from green to a slightly lighter green... and he never took the time to examine my excellent work. It was almost as if he didn't really care, as much as I didn't care. It's not even a graded assignment. The only assignments that matter are the tests I mentioned earlier, which probably reflect the calibur of difficulty showcased in the end-chapter sections in the textbook. That is, so easy as to not even bother. But I guess, I shouldn't really speak for the other students in the class, not even the ones using their computers to compile C++ code for their other classes.

As the end of the lab day, the professor had what he called a "special treat" for us. It required a volunteer, and who else would step up but our favorite internet memester? They spend five minutes or so figuring out their usernames which consisted mostly of numbers, and then something happened on the projection screen.



The following conversation appeared on the projector.

Professor: Hello how are you...
"Anonymous" Student: my wife and I lived happily for 20 years, and then we met.
Professor: Good to hear... How are you enjoying talk...
Student: its fun
Student: this will prove to be a fun tool to mess with people in class
Student: for some added fun try deleting system32
Student: ofc
Student: its a virus that will harm your computer

This savage was laying down meme after crispy meme on the projector even as the professor was continuing his lecture and the other students were leaving the classroom.

I can't stress enough that this is NOT hyperbole. Sometimes I have to sit down and wonder if this is even the real world. Have I traveled back in time to 2005? Am I some kind of pioneer stepping through a portal and documenting everything that i see here, in this classroom?

...Well, I have some theories as to what's really going on here, anyways.