Two Santa Fe College professors recently received a $5,000 grant from Google for a new computer programming course aimed at making computer science interesting and inclusive to more students.
The class, called Computer Concepts, was created by information technology and math associate professor Elizabeth Drake and will be offered starting this Fall. The class will teach students computer technology basics and will introduce them to the large number of IT fields in the industry, according to an early copy of the syllabus.
IT professor Cheryl Calhoun pitched the program to the Google CS Engagement Small Awards Program, which awards colleges for creating engaging computer science introduction programs for students.
Calhoun said she hopes the program will make CS courses more “engaging, interesting and inclusive for a diverse student population.”
Nate Roslosky, a Santa Fe computer programming and engineering sophomore, said he thinks courses like these are important so students can see all their options.
“I think it’s really interesting that this will be taught here because this is what a lot of the people need to go through,” Roslosky, 20, said, “a kind of cursory course to see what they want to do because there are so many different offshoots you can do from this.”
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 2/6/2015 under the headline “SFC receives Google grant for new computer course"]
