I’m glad to hear I am not the only one who sustained massive head trauma from that panel. MICS really is a crapshoot. I went my sophomore year knowing that most of the material was out of my league. Nonetheless, I was shocked at how bad the talks were from a public speaking standpoint. I really don’t like it when conferences reinforce the stereotype that computer science people cannot speak to an audience. They should really have a class on working the crowd. With all of the cool stuff we’re doing (petaflops! Awesome!) it’s amazing that people can be so monotone. It was supposed to be a celebration, yet I find that our group was the only one celebrating.

When there is little fun to be had, UMM CSCI makes its own. I’m going to miss you guys :\

Our first two students (Rob and Emily) both gave their talks today and both did excellent jobs. In both cases their talks were nearly as good as anything else I saw today, and significantly better than several (including several by experienced faculty). Well done!