I started out thinking that my trip to SIGCSE was going to involve seeing professors present papers and getting a bag full of flyers. Well, it turned out to be just that--and so much more! An experience of this magnitude can only be described day-by-day, like they would in the game Oregon Trail, if you didn't succumb to dysentery or fall off the wagon.

Tuesday:
Departure from Berkeley at 9am. We intended to depart at 8am, but considering most CS students are not morning people, lateness was expected. Also, let it be known that sleep in a van is not equivalent to sleep in a proper bed. However, we did play car games, listen to Pink Floyd, and do a lot of shouting. Yes, a van full of nerds can get rowdy. Obviously, by the time we got to Portland, we were all pretty dang tired.

Wednesday:
I woke up earlier than the rest of the group to get my 5 hours of volunteering out of the way sooner. After stuffing conference bags with swag and registering countless teachers and students from all over the world, I met some volunteer students from the East Coast and inevitably proceeded to compare things from opposite sides of the country (In N Out vs. White Castle, various phrases, etc.) and swap CS jokes. It's great to be in a place where you can make all the geeky references you want and have people laugh with you instead of being confused. In the afternoon I went to Powell's Bookstore, an immense establishment full of tomes and a very tall shelf full of manga. I think I could have spent all day in there.
Later at night I wandered around downtown with one of them and got lost. Turns out after 9p, most of Portland is closed. Except for the microbreweries and bars. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't raining...and if I hadn't forgotten my umbrella.

Thursday:
The conference officially began. To kick it off, there was a keynote speech dedicated to Randy Pausch, an incredible professor from Carnegie Mellon who designed Alice, a programming language designed to be accessible to children and people who are afraid of windows full of code. It was truly moving to see someone so dedicated to making programming less intimidating and setting the foundations for creating the next generation of computer scientists. Afterwards, I helped out at a paper session where teachers present ways to help students understand compilers through simplified programming languages and robotics. I also attended a session where teachers showed off their most interesting CS assignments, such as independent research groups to encourage creativity and programming Asteroids to teach object-oriented programming.
At night, most of the student volunteers went to the SIGCSE Reception. We ate, drank, and made merry amidst the horde of professors socializing, and got incredibly noisy when my professor led us all into a whimsical and CS-related game. Fortunately most of the reception goers had cleared out at that point, so we weren't too disruptive...

Friday:
Another day, another keynote. This time it was from Marissa Mayer, VP of Google. There she spoke of how many of Google's major services were the products of creative innovation from the individual employees, rather than formulated by the company itself. It offered the message that although many computer scientists would work on legacy code, there were always opportunities for working on something new and world-changing. After the speech, I attended a session discussing how CS could be made fun again and I explored the exhibition hall, where company representatives handed out flyers and swag. I also somehow managed to get around to doing some of my homework, despite having to make signs to direct conference attendees to certain events. Making signs was quite fun, since I could cover them with CS-related drawings and put them up for people to enjoy.
In the evening, there was a party for all the student volunteers. Pizza was consumed, random raffle prizes were handed out, and games were played. I can't describe how much fun it all was with just words, but I think at some point there will be pictures of it all on the SIGCSE '08 site.

Saturday:
Though I didn't really feel much like attending any of the morning events, I got to the convention hall at 8a anyway. I met my friends from Jersey and decided to head to Finnegan's Toy Store downtown. On the way, however, we discovered Portland's Saturday Market and could not help but get off the train and take a look. We marveled at handmade ocarinas and artwork, gushed over the unique designs of handbags and various articles of clothing, and laughed at drug-themed jokes written on t-shirts (such as "Only Users Lose Drugs"). Though I didn't get to see the toy store, visiting the open market was absolutely worth it.
The keynote happened in the afternoon this time, and it was from Ed Lazowska, discussing how CS could be put to use in some of the world's greatest challenges. He encouraged the audience to speak out against the established myths about the CS community--to say that we were not just an army of nerds and geeks who spend all day in front of a computer coding away and to say that our work can have and is having a significant impact on the world.
And as a member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon, I felt legally obligated to attend the UPE business meeting that happened that afternoon. Needless to say, I was a bit happier to attend the workshop I registered for: Active Teaching with Toys, Games, Stories, and Play. Who would've thought that Dr. Seuss books could teach CS concepts?

Sunday:
After seeing how quickly all traces of the conference were taken down Saturday night I became painfully aware of the fact that I would soon be back in Berkeley and attending class again. We packed up, checked out, and hopped onto the van that would take us back. But fortune determined that even our return trip would be memorable, as we saw that all the rain in Portland translated to snow up in the mountains that we drove through. At one point in our journey we had to stop and have several rounds of snowball fights. It was truly glorious as we pegged each other with powder and risked frostbite from rolling snowballs with bare hands. The delay meant we returned at around 10p, but a great time was had by all (well, all who didn't stay inside the van, that is).

A lot of fun was had outside of the conference, but SIGCSE itself was an incredible experience. I am warm with the knowledge that people of all ages, races, creeds, and orientations could come together to further the great cause known as computer science education. I'm very happy to know that out there are people who understand that lectures and programming drills are not the only ways to teach students the wonderful world of CS, and that CS education can start earlier in life through entertaining activities and easy-to-understand programming languages. Most of all, I'm excited and overjoyed that my research project, CS Illustrated, is contributing to this great cause and helping the next generation of computer scientists be at their very best.







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w00t! Check out da clubs I'm a member of!