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Education Programming

College Requires All CS Majors To Take An Improv Class (wsj.com) 353

Posted by EditorDavid from the whose-line-of-code-is-it-anyway? dept.
Northeastern University requires all of its computer science majors to take improv -- a class in theatre and improvisation, taught by professors in the drama department. The Wall Street Journal says it "forces students to come out of their shells and exercise creative play" before they can get their diplomas. (Although when the class was made mandatory in 2016, "We saw a lot of hysterics and crying," says Carla E. Brodley, dean of the computer science department.)

So what happens to the computer science majors at Northeastern? The course requires public speaking, lecturing on such nontechnical topics as family recipes. Students also learn to speak gibberish -- 'butuga dubuka manala phuthusa,' for instance... One class had students stare into a classmate's eyes for 60 seconds. If someone laughed, you had to try again...

The class is a way to 'robot-proof' computer-science majors, helping them sharpen uniquely human skills, said Joseph E. Aoun, the university president. Empathy, creativity and teamwork help students exercise their competitive advantage over machines in the era of artificial intelligence, according to Mr. Aoun, who wrote a book about it... Other professionals agree that improv can teach the teamwork and communication required of working with others. Many software applications now are built in small teams, a collaboration of engineers, writers and designers.
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College Requires All CS Majors To Take An Improv Class More

College Requires All CS Majors To Take An Improv Class

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  • Sounds like a nightmare. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    All throughout my school years, there were always these sick sadist "teachers" who forced me to participate in all kinds of stupid "games" and crap. I hated it all. I want nothing to do with disgusting humans for a very good reason, and the ones I *would* want something to do with are not going to participate in anything like this or ever speak to me.

    • Oh good, ways to weed out horrible UI designers, and coders who go along with it. State your name for the record?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by epyT-R ( 613989 )

        Today's UIs are horrible.. They are also not typically designed by the programmers but by so-called UX 'designers.' More LCD designed-by-committee garbage.

  • Before I was a comp-sci major.

    You don't want to tell me to "sharpen" ANYTHING.

  • Skip to the chase.. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by xtal ( 49134 )

    Teach them how to manipulate people.

    Seriously, it's an extremely valuable skill. People can be hacked just like computer systems. Psychology.. works.

    I guess that makes me sound like a sociopath.. but seriously, my life got a lot easier after I figured a few things out.

  • unpopular opinion... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rogoshen1 ( 2922505 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @12:57AM (#58616834)

    Liberal arts students go through their degree, and take no stem classes and the reaction is: "Oh god, getting through college without learning anything"

    Forcing STEM students to do something outside of their comfort-zone and it's "Oh god, what a waste of time"

    What ever happened to college being about producing well educated, well rounded citizens?

    Vocational schools need to make a come back.

    • There should be like 20 electives and you have to pick 3. Making improv mandatory on some dumb president's whim is a joke. Also, "robot-proof"? This guy sounds like a real tool.

      • Re:unpopular opinion... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @11:12AM (#58618294) Journal
        You should be forced to take a couple English courses. A couple fine arts courses. A couple philosophy courses. A couple history courses. A couple business courses. And a couple general science (not in your major) courses. That would be 12 extra classes, spread across 4 years of learning. Less than 1 per quarter. Learn about art, learn about performance, learn history, communications skills, basic economics, philosophy (classical, not a lot of the modern schlock), other sciences. It's about turning out a person who actually is well-rounded, not just a single-task robot.
    • That's what school is for. It should expose you to a wide range of subjects so that you have a good idea of what you want to focus on at university. In the UK when they had O' levels universities used to require maths, English language and literature and a foreign language for admission to any program. So those doing an English degree had to master simple calculus and those of us doing science had to write creative essays and study Shakespeare.

      University is for going into a subject in great depth so that

      • In the UK when they had O' levels universities used to require maths, English language and literature and a foreign language for admission to any program.

        Not true. Firstly it was lang OR lit, and secondly it wasn't every university.

        I know this because I had a classmate in 6th form who was really good at maths and pretty good at chemistry and physics but resat O level English at every opportunity, all to no avail - couldn't get above a D. While it narrowed his choices somewhat he did get in at (IIRC) Read

    • Because stem courses are useful, while liberal arts courses largely are not? It's not an equivalence. This appears to be nothing more than extroverts enjoying the torture of introverts. They love people and eye contact and can't understand why anyone would ever be different. Introverts look like inhuman monsters to them.

      • What? Communication skills (which is what improv teaches and builds) are not useful? You never communicate with others? And creative thinking - linking seemingly random "dots" together to create a new narrative, a new story - is not useful in STEM?

        I attribute what I have achieved not to the fact I have multiple STEM degrees, but to the fact I am a good communicator, I am an engaging speaker, I can make links and associations most others can't (thus the dozens of patents), and know how to explore with a

    • Liberal arts students go through their degree, and take no stem classes and the reaction is: "Oh god, getting through college without learning anything"

      Forcing STEM students to do something outside of their comfort-zone and it's "Oh god, what a waste of time"

      These two things are not contradictory.

    • only basic office bureau job require you to have a little bit general knowledge, for most, the specialization with a layer of social interaction will be enough, and as such general knowledge on music will not help a DB programmer, neither will it help your office squirrel doing excel and word 6/5. That is why as a general rule forcing adding art/geo/hist to stem is considered useless (philo is another issue). The consideration that adding a bit of STEM to art stem (pun intended) to the fact that there is a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      Yeah. I find this to be one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time. I think anyone yipping over it around here is probably in DIRE need of this.

      Aren't we the ones screeching and moaning about "stupid MBAs never lsitening to engineers"? Well, this would be a great start to build some socials skills and to learn how to make yourself heard without risking your job.

      You got no time for that? Well, chances are you personally are NOT one of the 3% genious engineers that keep this world going so I highly doubt

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )
      Public speaking was a required course when I was in engineering school. Beyond that there was a requirement for some number of "distribution" classes, which meant liberal arts. Nobody complained about it because they were easy, and because there were no girls in the engineering classes but the liberal arts classes were loaded with them.

    • What ever happened to college being about producing well educated, well rounded citizens?

      That's a great idea. Forcing them to all be well-rounded in the same way isn't a net gain, though.

  • I'll interview a NE CS grad if (Score:3)

    by CQDX ( 2720013 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @01:16AM (#58616872)

    they can hack into their school registrar's department and waive this course requirement for them.

    Double points if they mention "Kobiyashi Maru"

    • Your preference is someone so hell bent on not having social interaction that they go out of their way to not complete the task at hand and cheat instead without delivering an end product?

      Before you hire that person you should probably make the rest of your team aware so they can quit without having to work with such a toxic co-worker.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        Yeah, you have a point there.

        Hire the guy that hacks the system and sells waivers to their peers.

  • Simply transfer (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why force introverts to do something they dont want or need to do. This wont bring people out of their shells, it will merely traumatize them.

    Nothing about CompSci should require drama or public speaking.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Well, the CompSci geekoids are delicate little snowflakes who should never be asked to do something they don't like.

  • Sounds like this college is taking "nerd" stereotypes too seriously.
    Most of my college mates where snow boarders, mountain climbers and liked lots of outdoorsy stuff.

    Plenty had good social skills. I think CS departments need to focus on increasing their CS course offerings rather than adding silly additional requirements.

    I'd like to see one college ranking that was based on what undergrads really need: plenty of course variety and course quality. All the usual stuff they base rankings are not that relevant

    • Most people refer to THEIR past experience or education... These people are likely above 40 and going of college experience or their education on demographics from 20+ years ago! (also to an extrovert, they will see more people than there actually is.)

      CS majors have increased at least 2x from a decade ago. Before that it was booming with normal people beginning to take over the majority after dot-com wave 20 years ago... Nerd majority has been GONE for a long time and probably wasn't above 60% in the 90s.

      A

    • Reading the comments in this thread, it seems about 75% are the traditional nerds who want to just fiddle with techie stuff, ignore the rest of the world, and communicate only with others in their safe space bubble-of-tech. I think it's a byproduct of the coddling so many of the millennials have had.

  • Cue the nerds (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @01:59AM (#58616980)
    Cue the nerds making up whining excuses about why this is stupid to hide their own insecurities.
  • Who Cares. Don't compel students to take a class that may have no real benefit. If they are interested they will enroll.

    • Yes, why ever learn how to communicate, how to connect seemingly random dots, how to respond to something on-the-fly? It's not like you will ever have to communicate with another person, try to show them why your idea is the better one, and why that hole you ignored really doesn't matter. Just look at the code, it's self-explanatory!

      And why should we make them take business classes, who needs to know about economics or even balancing a checkbook? Why should they even have a clue about budgeting at all, a

  • These people didn't choose CS for the people ...

  • This is nothing new. I had to take classes on art / art history, business relations, how to give presentations / lectures, and a whole lot of other bullshit that didn't pertain to the actual education I was going after.

    • And it probably made you a better employee because of it. It may not have directly impacted your principal responsibilities at your job, but having basic communication skills, business foundations, cultural knowledge makes you a person who can actually relate to others, hopefully understand some of the other aspects of the business (not just your little world-o-code), and a potential for advancement. THAT'S the point.

      Companies really do want more than just a code-monkey (if that's all they wanted, there's [upwork.com]

  • I expect a lot of CS students will start transferring to different schools if possible asap.

    I also expect the number of people applying for the CS program next semester to drop off a bit now that this is national news.

    How many and how much is an unknown, but forcing someone to do something that goes against their core nature is not a great way to entice students to your school.

    Consider the thing you hate to do most. Now ask yourself if would you go to a school that required you to do that thing when you co

  • Software developer who took an improv class (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Will Humphreys ( 5987136 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:59AM (#58617236)
    I am a developer in my 40s and I started improv classes 8 months ago here in Switzerland. Initially it was one of the most uncomfortable things I have ever had done. Each week I felt incredibly self conscious and I couldn't wait for the class to end. There was not a single game I enjoyed. I literally wanted the ground to swallow me up every week. Then one night I played the simplest warm up improv game with my wife at home and for the first time I liked it. After a few more weeks I started to enjoy some warm up games at the improv class. Fast forward 8 months and I look forward to the class and largely enjoy all the games. I expect in another 6 months I will enjoy everything as I finally let go of all my fears. For me realising that something is fun but you can't enjoy it because of your fears and then overcoming that is a very big thing. If I could of overcome these fears 20 years ago that might of had a profound impact on my life.

    • I am a developer in my 40s and I started improv classes 8 months ago here in Switzerland.

      Why ? Did someone force you ?

    • I am a developer in my 40s and I started improv classes 8 months ago here in Switzerland. [...] If I could of overcome these fears 20 years ago that might of had a profound impact on my life.

      You're only in your 40s. You most likely have plenty of time for it to have a profound impact.

  • The class is a way to 'robot-proof' computer-science majors, helping them sharpen uniquely human skills

    So do they require all arts students to take a computing course, helping them to sharpen their technical skills and understand the world they will be entering

  • When I did my computing degree, many a year ago, we ran 8 hour days of lectures. To keep myself going, I had a job in a bar that I worked most evenings (so it was cycle home, quick bite to eat and then out). Most of the rest of the time was doing coursework.
    Part of the course included doing presentations to the class, so we were also 'trained' in public speaking (which is a very useful skill for the field).

    So, the question comes, what extra time are you going to add to the curriculum of an already tired s

  • But all humanities majors need to come up with a 2D pathfinding algorithm that will go around a concave obstacle. In the language of their choice. Shouldn't take more than 10 mins.

  • I often joke that the two most directly applicable course I took in college to my current career (infosec) were logic and rhetoric, and psychology. THe former to learn how to construct a coherent argument and the later to know which argument to use with which person.

    Surprisingly neither COBOL nor Prolog figure strongly into my day to day.

    Min

  • I suspect that treating introversion like a disease adds a lot to the public mental health problem. Sure, if someone is clearly autistic a lot of people would tell them how great they are and that it's perfectly fine, but if someone just prefers not to publicly speak or participate in group activities that's a problem and they must be taken outside their comfort zone to 'fix them'.

    Instead of trying to fix those on the 'thinking spectrum', how about trying to be nice them them, to not look down at them, to n

  • It's high time to make a clear distinction between computer science, software engineering, and code monkeying. If e.g. you are developing a web site, you are not doing computer science, and maybe not even software engineering.

  • Every developer dreads the release walkthrough, where your work is to perform for the first time under the pin-eyed gaze of customer representatives. No matter how carefully you prepare, something embarrassingly unexpected will go wrong. Apple's first iPhone with Face ID refused to unlock for Tim Cook on stage because during setup for the demo, too many backstage people had glanced at it.

    Because the essence of improv is spontaneity, you could gain the ability to apply instant spin with humor to deflect atte

  • Students don't have to abandon their field in order to learn something outside of a very narrow domain. The fact that people react so violently to being asked to do this is an indicator that they need it. Nobody's asking them to base their entire academic career on something completely alien to them.

    They're only being asked to learn a little of the "other" while at uni. If a student *just* wants to learn a single subject they don't need a whole college or university to do that.

    If I'm hiring somebody and they tell me they've graduated college I'm going to expect they know a little more about the world than just what's on the job description. My only complaint is that this sort of requirement should apply to *all* students, not just CS majors. Maybe they do require it, but I'll have to comment on the first few lines of the article as it's paywalled (Is /. shilling for wsj now?).

    Where I went to school *everybody* had to take freshman physics; whether your major was in the school of science, engineering, architecture, whatever. And everybody had to complete a Humanities and Social Sciences core curriculum. So you have physics majors taking intro-level philosophy. Most of us seemed to survive it, and a lot of us learned some skills we'd have otherwise missed.

  • Good! More needed! (Score:3)

    by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @11:09AM (#58618286) Journal

    Once you get out in the real world, you need to know how to communicate ideas, how to speak in front of a group, and how to think creatively as part of a team. Improv and theater will absolutely improve those kinds of skills. If you want to be the stereotypical Cheetos-eating loser in the back closet - ignore your ability to communicate, to present, to solve problems creatively in a group. Just don't come whining when you're passed over again and again for any raises or promotions.

    A university degree used to mean someone skilled in many things, and highly skilled in one particular area (university - universal learning, exposure to many different fields). If you just want that one area, go to DeVry or some other place that focuses on building automatons, not well-rounded individuals.

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