Today I came by the computer science building at Brown around 11pm. There were a dozen undergraduate students in the atrium, taking a short break from work or eating a late dinner, and each of the computer labs had about 10 undergraduate students working.
That's a lot of students.
They work there. They study there. They debug there. They go to class there. The eat there. Sometimes they take a nap on a couch there. That's the computer science subculture at its most extreme!
Maybe one of the classrooms should be converted into a dorm with bunk beds, Appalachian-hut style. That would save the students some money.
Reminds me of Tom Doeppner's Hotel CIT email.
ReplyDeleteNo vacancies?
ReplyDeleteIn Waterloo, we have a lounge with couches in the Math and Computer Science Building where there tend to be at least 10 people sleeping every night (in fact, guess where I am sleeping tonight!).
ReplyDeleteReminds me of my days at IIT Kanpur, we used to go for our last tea of the day just before 2AM cause CSE canteen timing was from 2PM to 2AM. I remember spending 16 to 20 hrs of the day in CSE building.
ReplyDeleteBrown, Waterloo, IIT: a common unhealthy student subculture. Is it like that everywhere in computer science?
ReplyDeleteWould you use those words if it were a group of writers staying up late at night at a cafe or literary salon discussing their latest project?
ReplyDeleteOr a group of actors in the days leading up to the opening of a play falling asleep backstage while working on the final details of the performance as we used to in our youth in my theatre troupe?
Or a painter staying up all night in a bout of inspiration doing sketches and drafts of their next ouvre?
Is it a unhealthy student "subculture"?
I see, in all four cases, simply passion.