20 Questions with Melissa Ocepek and Matt Turk

Join us for a fun, informal session of questions and answers with some of your favorite faculty members! For October, we are joined by Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and Assistant Professor Matt Turk. Each faculty member will do a short presentation on a topic, and then the other faculty member is allowed 20 questions to pick apart their argument.

Ocepek will present the topic "Is a Tomato Information?" Information is largely considered a primitive concept in information sciences, something that we all need to work with, but don't have the time or space to neatly define. In this discussion, she will present some of the positives and negatives of allowing information to remain a primitive concept as well as describe what she sees as the biggest problems with our field's discourse around information (spoiler alert–it's hierarchy!). She will also lead the audience in her favorite personally invented game show, "Is It Information???"

Turk will present the topic "Learning to Code Is Important, but Not Because It Will Get You a Job." When it comes to learning to code, everyone thinks more about using it to impress employers, and less about how it influences your learning. In this discussion, he will talk more about why computational thinking is broadly useful beyond applications in how it rewires your brain.

Attendees will have the opportunity to ask Ocepek and Turk questions after they have finished picking each other apart. Join us for an interesting and fun chat!

Questions? Contact Jessica Williams