UIUC Talkshow Interview

For several years the inimitable Aaryaman Patel and Juan David Campolargo Hoyos conducted dozens of interviews with Illinois faculty, students, and administrators as the UIUC Talkshow. They had reached out to me as they were getting their show started, but wasn’t until September 2023 that I sat down with them for a chat.

I remember joining them in their studio in the Siebel Center for Design and thinking: This will be a fun hour or two! But then we got to talking, and time started flying. When I left five hours later I was really hungry and Suzanna was wondering what had happened to me.

We had an incredible wide-ranging conversation. It’s a night I’ll never forget. Here’s the video, and the transcript follows.

Transcript

Transcript

The transcript below was initially produced by AssemblyAI and then heavily post-processed by Claude. But it was not edited by a human and so certainly contains mistakes!

Also note that we went so long that, toward the end, my camera runs out of battery leaving my frozen. But the audio does continue to work, and the hosts camera as well.

Aaryaman Patel: You still come to campus every day or.

Geoffrey Challen: I’ve been coming more just this year for the past couple years. That was not on campus as much, probably because of COVID and. But now, yeah, like, I’ll come in for meetings. Like, I was going to come in today, and then one of my meetings got moved to Zoom, so I was like, I’ll just stay home. But yeah, but I’ve definitely been on campus more recently, which has been nice in certain ways. Like, it’s. I have some colleagues that are around, so it’s good to be able to talk to them in person. But, yeah, I don’t know, there’s certain types of things that are hard for me to do on campus, so it’s nice to not have to try to do them on campus anymore.

Juan David Campolargo Hoyos: Do you have to convince anyone on the department to let you do that, or was that. They sort of agreed to.

Geoff: No. Well, we can talk about this. I mean, there’s a story behind it, sort of how we got to this point. But the department’s been very supportive in terms of thinking about different modalities for offering the class. But I think some of that support is sort of like benign neglect, shall we say? You know, just sort of the course is your problem. So.

And then Covid came along and that really sort of put us into a position where it was possible to try some new things, which is neat. So. So that I think, really kind of, at least for a couple of semesters, I think there was more of a sense of just everybody, do your best. And then as we start to come out of it, we started to have conversations about, okay, well, why are we doing things this way? And stuff like that. Which is. I think those are good things to talk about. But we discovered some things during the pandemic, so that was kind of cool. Ariane, have you taken my class?

Aaryaman: I have not, actually. I’m doing mechanical engineering and I had the option of CS101 or CS124. I didn’t know back then that I had an option. I thought, I just need to take CS101. And that’s the class I took with Neil Davis back then.

Geoff: Yeah, it’s a good class. It is, yeah. It’s different, you know, but.

Juan David: So, yeah, he’s mostly self taught. And all the procedures that we’ve created, we just.

Geoff: Well, at some point, most of us are self taught. It could be a little bit to start off with, and then off you go.

Aaryaman: But I did start taking a class over the summer. Over the Summer, just looking at some CS courses which are just available online for free. From a university. I found like, so many websites. I was like, oh, yeah, this is, like, amazing, because no other department does it. So I was just. I mean, obviously started with yours because I was going chronologically, so 124. I was just looking through the websites, the videos. I started looking at the art of web programming by Ranjit Ekumar.

Geoff: Big fan of that stuff.

Aaryaman: Another one which I looked at was machine learning and data visualization. So I was just like, blown away by. There’s so much that you can just learn, even though if you’re. Even if you’re not a student at this campus.

Geoff: Right, yeah.

Aaryaman: And just like go online, just look at all this and just.

Geoff: It’s interesting though, right? Because, I mean, I think that, you know, have we started this?

Juan David: Like, I don’t know, this thing is just for show. Just don’t worry about it too much about those things.

Geoff: Okay. Well, I mean, I just want to make sure that what I’m saying is for public consumption. You’re not for public consumption.Juan David: You can assume it’s public now.

Geoff: Okay, cool.

Juan David: But at any time we can just edit it.

Geoff: No, that’s fine. I just, like, we were just chatting. So I think that I do agree, and I think that computer science has been good at that in the past in terms of just on some level, it’s things that we’re building for our own students. And in many cases, the effort required to make them publicly available is not very big.

I do worry a little bit because there are these efforts that you might be aware of to sort of try to get everybody into canvas, for example. And I understand bits and pieces of that, particularly from an administrative perspective. And no one has really leaned on me in any way to do that with my stuff. And if they do, then be time to find another job. But the effect of that can be actually moving stuff behind closed doors and making it much harder for people to access.

I mean, I joke with people in the department. Like, I can’t find a lot of syllabi for courses in my own department because they’re on canvas and they’re all locked away. And I think you can make stuff on canvas public, but people don’t. And so it just becomes very difficult to figure out what’s going on. So I’m curious. And for me, too, I mean, I’m curious about what my colleagues are doing. I want to look at their stuff and be inspired by the things that they’re trying and so that becomes very hard to do when it’s sort of hidden away in some way that you can’t access. So it’s too bad.

Aaryaman: And it’s funny that you mentioned that, because last year, actually, we went to talk to the dean just about this issue about our frustration with Canvas and how we want to learn from other courses just being taught in the university, but we can’t access any resources from any of those courses. And, I mean, you can expect what happened, but.

Geoff: Well, and, you know, I don’t really. I don’t know. I don’t feel like there’s like, a level of maliciousness at play here necessarily. I think there’s, you know, for certain types of students, I think it’s very helpful to have everything in one place and stuff like that. And so I sort of understand that to some degree.

I don’t know why LMS software is so awful, though. It’s just like these. I mean, every time I look at Canvas, I just go like. I don’t know, it just looks like a bad 90s web app. I feel like LMS software seems to be like 30 years behind the rest of the web, and I don’t fully understand that. The only good thing people will say about Canvas is that it’s better than what preceded it, which I believe, but what preceded it?

Aaryaman: Canvas Compass 2G.

Geoff: There’s something called Blackboard. You want to hear horror stories, talk to people about Blackboard. That’s one that’s. That comes in for a lot of abuse. So I understand, like, bits and pieces of what is happening here, but I do think that there is this idea of sort of trying to embrace the broader ecosystem that we sometimes are missing.

So, for example, a colleague of mine got some feedback from the department about a course that they were teaching. And one of the things people were complaining about, apparently, was that they were hosting their videos on YouTube, which is a pretty common thing for a faculty to do. Like it’s free. Yeah. You know, and one of the complaints was, well, when the video ends, YouTube recommends other videos to the student about similar topics. And some of those videos have, you know, potentially better production values.

And I was thinking so. And actually, it’s kind of a nice thing if you think about it, because, like, the student might find another video that explains the concept in a different way that might be helpful. But it’s like, no, no, no. Let’s lock everything into media space so that we don’t have any recommendations. Like, you’re just Stuck with the one explanation from the one person. And you better hope that it works. And if it doesn’t, know, you’re out of luck. So anyway, I thought that was a very bizarre way of thinking about things.

Juan David: It’s like for. For 225, I never went to a lecture because I just couldn’t learn anything. So I just went to YouTube and I just learned everything on YouTube by this Indian guy who could just explain everything better. And I still did well in the class, but it’s like, you know, like, there’s so many people online that just know, like, again, like, like know how to explain everything so much naturally better. But just like a, you know, everyone has their own, like, style of things, and you can find that online.

You know, ever since we, instance, since we started the stock show thing. You’re one of the people that I always wanted to talk to you because you were, to me, you’re symbol of hope of someone who never. And you know, like, this is not to flatter you or anything, but like, you were a symbol of hope in the sense of, like, you were not. Like, you were not. You were. You’re someone who did not refuse to say, the emperor has no clothes and. And did not compromise on. On his values. I appreciate that from so many things, from how you think about, you know, how to learn and what to learn from your cap would, you know, you’re like, the craftsmanship from how you think about tenure and education system and so many things that I’m so grateful that I almost took your class by mistake. But those two years since, it just changed radically how I think about things. So you’re a symbol of hope for meeting so many people.

Geoff: Thank you. I appreciate that. I didn’t know that and always feel super hopeful. It’s nice to know.

Juan David: So, but I’m very curious on how you got to this place in your philosophy. So if I know correctly, you grew up in Detroit. What were you like as a child, and then you went to college, and from there you can start.

Geoff: I mean. Yeah, I was just talking with a colleague about this. I mean, I think that one of the things that I’ve become more aware of as I’ve taught longer and interacted with more people in academia is I think, you know, and again, thank you for saying the nice things. It’s very meaningful to hear that. I mean, I was privileged to grow up in an environment that sort of supported education, and I think I have been blessed with a certain degree of sort of natural intelligence, but I wasn’t like, necessarily a good student.

You know, I spent a lot of time in high school asleep. I don’t actually know. I was thinking about this recently because I think even that was sort of a privilege because I think in a lot of high schools, I would have been in a lot of trouble a lot of the time because I was asleep a lot of the time. And I’m not sure that I would have been able to do that. I mean, do they let you sleep in high school still? Is that something that you can still do? I don’t know. Like, I feel like I would have. Somebody would have said something in other contexts. Right. It would have been considered, like, insubordinate or whatever.

But I don’t know. I was tired a lot, and, you know, I didn’t always eat very well, and I was just. So I would, you know, I would doze in calculus, for example, a lot of the time. Spanish class. It’s always sort of like, a little alarming to be called on in class when you were asleep. Like, someone is speaking Spanish to me. It’s a bad dream. And. But there was a period of time in my life where I kind of was able to sort of get through some of that just because, you know, I. Again, I think I, like, was lucky enough to have some innate intelligence and, like, wasn’t in super. A super challenging environment.

And so. But I think that, like, the certain level of sort of, I don’t know, insubordination is maybe the wrong word, but, like, just resistance to authority sort of, like, maybe was something that I had to deal with a lot and. And was able to deal with a lot. But I think that when I’m designing my own classes, I think a lot about. I try to be conscious of my own history as a student and how that sort of informs the way that I design my classes. Because I think. I mean, I think every teacher has this happening sort of either consciously or subconsciously, right? Like, you are designing a course that you would want to take.

I think the only problem with that is we have a lot of people who end up as teachers who sort of embody a particular kind of student. It was like, you know, I joke with my colleagues. Like, I can tell you sat in. The front row, right. Of all your classes. You always showed up on time, pencil sharpened. You know, when the teacher asked a question, your hand went right up and look, I don’t want to, like, act as if I’m sort of mocking that attitude. I think it’s cool that people take things seriously, but I think the problem is we have a lot of those people in education and not very many people from the back of the room who can represent maybe a different type of perspective on education, different perspective on learning.

One of the things I tell my colleagues is go. I think one of the most revealing experiences for me, and I think this is helpful for people when they think about, particularly classroom instruction, is go to a class and sit in the back, right? Because as an instructor, when you’re lecturing, your perspective is also like the front row. That’s what you see, right? So you tell students, like, talk to your neighbor about this. And all the kids in the front row are like, oh, and they’re super excited about this. Like, 10 rows back, you’re already getting the people that are, like, looking around. Is everyone else doing it? Okay, but you get to the. You get to row 50, you get to the back, and people are like, did the teacher say something?

You know, and so there’s just like. I mean, a lot of times, frankly, I go and I sit in the back, and I’m older now, and my eyesight isn’t very good. I can’t even read what’s on the screen, right. You know, I mean, I went to a large lecture class just for nostalgia’s sake, I guess, a few weeks ago and kind of poked my head in. It was being taught in Follinger, and I could not read what was on the screen, you know, And I just think, like, look, I’m. I don’t have bad eyesight, right? But I am, you know, my mid-40s. I should probably be able to read it if you’re using this for a long period of time and, like, writing on it. And so I think that just visiting the back of a class, right? And understanding, like, you know, viewing those students and the degree to which they’re cooperating with what you’re trying to do, right? Is something that, you know, we should probably do more of.

So. So, yeah, so I think as a kid, that was me. I got in trouble a lot. Not serious stuff, but, you know, I was, you know, I. I swept the parking lot multiple times in my middle school for a variety of dumb things. And. And then, you know, I got to college, and I think I sort of got to college largely from a combination of, you know, again, just lucky to have a little bit of innate intelligence and then very strict parenting. And then I got to college and, like, that those wheels came off and I was really in trouble.

But when I look back on it now too. I also do feel that I didn’t like the format. There was something about how college instruction worked that just didn’t work for me. I remember in high school, actually I took a history course. This was like this AP history class. And I remember everyone would talk about how this teacher. It was like college. It was like a pre college class. And it was in a certain way because the guy just talked and talked and talked and talked like he lectured basically in a smaller room. It was high school, but it was just like we get there and he would just start talking and then 50 minutes later he would stop talking. You were just sitting there scribbling down notes the whole time. And I remember thinking, this is kind of weird. Like, this is not. This is very different than my other classes where we’re usually doing things and engaged in activities and stuff like that. And like, is this how college is? And you know, I got to college and I was like, yep, basically, you know, and I found that to be really difficult.

And I think one of the things that really drew me to computer science sort of, not only. I mean, I was fiddling with computers a little bit when I was a kid, right. But it was, you know, that was many, many years ago. And at the time I do think that I was rereading this book, Coders by Clive Thompson, because we’re using it as part of my class. And he talks about how at that era people didn’t see this as a profession, right. It was like computers were kind of this toy thing that you had at home you played some games on or something.

But when I got back to it in college, I think for me it was actually the first, like, because, you know, you’re smart in high school, like I got into a good school, I went there and then immediately I’m surrounded by all these people who are very bright. And there’s a. There’s a line from a, a song by LCD Sound System where he’s talking about these, these cool people and he’s like, they’re also very nice. You know, it’s just like kind of terrible. And that’s the way it was. Like, they’re both much smarter than you and they’re also like very nice people actually. So it was difficult to not to dislike them, but.

And really just felt kind of at sea myself personally. And then I found this thing I could do, right. And it was. I think those courses for me were just this revelation because it was like, finally I get to do something and I can Sit down and like actually interact with this thing and also like get things right. I mean, I was in math courses. It was like proof based math and you would sit there for hours and you write things down and you turn it in and come back a week later and it’s all scribbled up with red pen. You’re like, oh, I didn’t know. But with computers it was like, okay, I have this problem to do and I can keep working on it until I get it done and I can have this sense of satisfaction which is like, I actually solved the problem. So that was cool.

And I think in many ways it was like the engagement with that type of thing that really sort of drew me to computer science at the time just because like other stuff wasn’t working. Honestly, like I wasn’t a good student in college. Like I was trying to be a good student. I was actually putting a little bit more work into it, but I was struggling academically. So, you know, someone has to be in the bottom of the class. So that was, that was me. And from that point forward, I mean, I think that for me has been sort of like a guide star in terms of how I, how I do things is just like the engagement with the material. Like being involved in the doing of things and the making of things and the building of things and the creating of things. Is something that for me is deeply, deeply satisfying. So did I answer your question? Yeah.

Juan David: So what inspired you to do physics and then what is it about the operating system class with Margot at Seltzer that really got to you?

Geoff: Yeah, I mean, I think, I don’t know what inspired me to do physics. I, I went through a phase again, this was like, this was prehistory for people your age. Right. But computer science, like, I don’t even think I knew you could major in computer science when I got to college. It just was, it wasn’t like now it’s so popular, everybody’s doing it, it’s a big thing. At the time, it was kind of like this kind of weird thing that maybe some people were starting to think about. And I had certainly had friends who were in those courses that have gone on and done some really cool things.

But yeah. And so the operating systems of course was just, that was a course that was sort of like known to be very difficult and very time consuming. Very crafty too. It was a lot like operating systems aren’t particularly subtle, they’re just complicated and tricky to get right. And I remember I had some, I Wasn’t a CS major. I was taking a course for fun. And that was, I think, a little bit of a weird thing to do. Like, I’m trying to think of what the equivalent would be here, like maybe taking 374 for fun. Um, but I remember like a few of my computer science friends gave me some side eye. They were like, oh, you’re gonna take. I gotta take operating systems. Okay, good luck, you know, And I did really well in the class and really enjoyed it. And so for me, that was again, just one of these things where it’s like, oh, okay, I’m actually still good at something. That’s nice.

So, yeah, and Margo’s fantastic. She and I are still in touch from time to time and she’s been a great mentor at points time. But again, I think that it was just one of these classes that was really designed around. I went to class. I mean, she was, she was a good teacher. But the heart of that course was the project work, right? And that’s where sort of like you put in the time and energy and lots and lots and lots of time and energy.

The first, that was the first year that the course was taught using this new instructional operating system that they had developed. And it was a little bit of a wild ride. It was sort of like some of the assignments were not very well calibrated. So for example, there was a. One of the assignments was two weeks on virtual memory, which is a pretty neat part of how operating systems work. But yeah, it was really like a month, at least a month long assignment. Even at the rate that people in this course are willing to work, the two weeks was a little nuts.

The first week was implement Malloc. And we have a Malloc assignment here in one of our courses. And so it’s kind of like something that students go through. This was a more difficult version of Malloc because it was actually the allocator that the operating system itself uses. And when that goes wrong, it’s almost like you’re just taking little bits of computer memory and scribbling over them. And if you do that for long enough, something will crash. If you take your computer as it’s running and just flip bits, right. Eventually it will crash, right? It might take a little while, actually. And when it does crash, you might have no idea what happened. It’s just like some bizarre error will happen.

So that was. That was that. So I remember, you know, they put that assignment out and I think the staff was looking at the students and just being like, oh my gosh, we have a problem here. And it’s one of the times I remember getting to see. I wish I had this email. It’s like, you look back now and some of you will have all your emails for your entire life. And maybe that’s its own kind of curse. But this email I still, I wish I still had because Margot finally, I think it was like a month later, right, Emailed the class and was like, look, we’re sorry, just please turn it in so we can move on. You know, like spring break had gone by. Like, a bunch of people in the class stayed for spring break and were like, all like living in this basement computer lab that they had set up.

So it had gotten. But people were pretty cheerful about it. It was just like, oh, wow. Because the staff was like, okay, clear. The deadlines are not important anymore. It was just one of those life experiences. But yeah, it was super fun. And so for me, again, it was just like this kind of experience of thinking, I’m finding something that I enjoy doing that I’m kind of good at. So that was fun.

Aaryaman: Are there any classes right now who you would say have a similar effect on students?

Geoff: That’s a good question. You know, it’s hard because a course like that, I mean, we probably have some, you know, I would like to think that some of, like our systems courses, some of our theory courses, in different ways, are big challenges to students, but, you know, it’s hard to. There’s definitely been sort of an attitudinal shift, I would argue, in computer science over the past couple decades in the sense that back then the people who were in it were really in it because they were interested in the material. There was no, like, you know, funnel into it. It wasn’t like, oh, you’re smart, you should go become a software creator someday. It was like, what is that again? You know, it was just a lot smaller.

And so now I think one of the big things that we contend with as a department, as a field is just the sense that we have people coming into this. And some of them are there because they’re genuinely interested in technology. And some of them are there because this is sort of a route to a potentially a good job, a comfortable, well paying job. And, you know, every field has had to deal with this. Medicine has been dealing with this for a long time, in a sense.

And like when my wife and I were in graduate school, we spent a period of time where we were working with Harvard undergraduates in this capacity that they Call them resident tutors. It’s sort of like an RA here. And I remember, like, at the time having a lot of talks with students, and particularly. And I don’t want to single out the doctors, but I felt like the doctors were frequently very confused. If you ever sort of challenged their choice of vocation, it was like, is that really a good thing? Like, you know, the medical system’s really messed up. And they’d be like, what? No, because it was one of these things where it was just like, okay, I’m gonna make a lot of money. People are gonna think I’m doing good in the world. It’s sort of a profession for smart people. And so they checked a lot of boxes, but some of them had never really, like, thought, do I actually want to be a doctor? I’m actually interested in this job, right?

And I think in. In computer science now we have a little bit of that happening, so it’s just different. So I don’t know if we could really. I don’t know if we could run a course like that here. I mean, you could run it as an optional thing, and just the expectation is that, okay, this course is really going. And I think ECE seems to have some courses like this. Right. At least based on the means that I see.

Operating systems courses have a tendency, I think, to be very involved. There’s just a lot to do. You know, I’m not sure that’s always a great thing. I mean, I think. And I actually remember Margot saying something. It’s one of the sort of comments about course design that I’ve always remembered. She was pointing out that because, you know, she had designed a lot of the class, she put a lot of work into. She was very proud of it, and the students generally appreciated it, or at least they said they did. And I remember asking her about this one. She’s like, well, you know, that’s the thing, though. If you. If people have completed something difficult, they tend to want to reflect on it finally. Like, you want to hope. You want to hope that it’s worth it. And so if you can make students do enough work, you can sort of pull this mind game on them, by the time they’re done, they’ll be like, oh, it must have been worth it, because you kind of hope it was, because if it wasn’t, you did a lot of work for nothing.

So I think that’s a danger, right, in terms of courses where sometimes you get to the point where it’s almost like the work is Its own justification. The course being difficult is sort of like the point, as opposed to thinking, maybe there’s ways to restructure this class so that it’s not as difficult, but students are still learning kind of as much as you want. So systems courses, I think, have a problem with this in general. And I’m a systems person, so I feel like I could say that. There’s just sort of a hazy ish attitude. Sometimes that happens, which is too bad because I think the area is really neat, but I think a lot of students get turned off by it because it just feels like endless C programming and Psych Pulse. And there are some really neat design principles that you can learn in those courses, but sometimes I think it’s just. They’re just too much.Aaryaman: At this point in your classes, do you have a way to sort of filter out those students and know, okay, this person is here because they’re genuinely interested? Or how can you tell if someone is there?

Geoff: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think you can necessarily. I think that student. I mean, first of all, like, my course is early enough that I think that students are still discovering their motivation. Right. And we want to allow that to happen. There’s no. I mean, I will say that over the years I’ve been here, like, I’ve had a lot of really fantastic interactions with non majors. With CS plus X majors. I mean, with CS majors too. But I feel sometimes that, you know, the. Something about how we’re admitting students, maybe, you know, it’s just gotten very competitive at this point. We’re certainly doing a great job of admitting very academically prepared, very intelligent students. Right. You know, and on some level, like, I don’t think it’s necessarily our job to try to filter for people that have a genuine interest in anything. What does that mean? You know, how would you tell?

But yeah, I mean, there’s still a mix. And I think it can come out over time. I think sometimes students that end up here and aren’t sure why they’re here will develop an appreciation of the material as they go. One hopes, though, because otherwise it’s like you’re lined up to do something you don’t like very much. But that happens too, in a variety of different areas. So it’s certainly not limited to computer science.

Aaryaman: One of the things that I think about is scalability, about how, like you mentioned, your class was small. And the students who were taking that class were there because they wanted to Learn and take that class. And the professor, if it’s 15 students, it can be like much more personal and much more hands on. With CS becoming so popular today and the number of students just increasing every year and the faculty being limited, how do you deal with this problem of scalability?

Geoff: Yeah, well, and it also intersects with something else, right, which you didn’t mention, which is sort of college cost and affordability. So, you know, it’s sort of interesting. I’ve seen a little bit of both sides of that. I mean, obviously now I teach an enormous class, and so I have thoughts on that. But. So I was, you know, I took Operating Systems with Margo, right. I came back and I was on staff for that class for many years actually, because I continued my PhD there. And every spring, eventually Margo handed off the class to Matt Welsh, who was my PhD advisor. He taught it. And I was a TF is what Harvard called them for the class basically every year I was in graduate school, which is itself kind of a weird arrangement, but whatever. I did it because I wanted to. It was a lot of fun for me. I really enjoyed teaching.

But the, you know, the class was always small, right? I mean, it never really got big while I was there. Maybe it’s big now. Probably not. I remember one year we had like seven students in it and like three core staff. So we had to. I think we had like four or five core staff to start with. And I was like, okay, this is probably excessive. So.

And then when I started my academic career in Buffalo, I. I got assigned to teach Operating Systems. I was very excited to do it, but I immediately had this problem, which is that I’m trying to teach a course that has been taught at small scale for a long time. And I’m trying to teach it to 100 students, which at the time I thought was a big class. And what I learned through that experience, actually, because sometimes when you’re small and you have too many resources, it’s easy just to kind of do things in these. I don’t know, it’s not clear that they’re the right way, but it’s just kind of the way you’ve been able to do it because you have a lot of people.

So, for example, in CS161, a lot of the grading was done by staff. Students turned in stuff. Sometimes we would read code. Actually, we finally stopped doing that because it was really awful. I mean, you can imagine it’s hard enough to read student code for simple problems. It’s even more torturous. To read it for giant operating system assignments that are like pages and pages long. And actually one of the things I learned about from that experience though was there was only one person I ever met who was actually good at that. And he had been on staff for the class for decades and had written a lot of the code that powered the system. So he was kind of on another level from the rest of us. But we would get together and have these code reading parties. We get pizza, we’d pass around this, we’d print out everything, pass around the student submissions. But it was really only David Holland who could spot mistakes consistently. And he had this fantastic laugh that he would, that he would. He’d be reading a student’s thing like, oh, it’s like trouble coming.

But when I started teaching the course, we just had to do things differently, right? There was no way that we could have done that type of manual inspection. And so we built tools, right? And you know, those tools, I mean, I think sometimes when people think about stuff like auto grading, there’s a sense that these are created to solve the problems of scale, but they actually open up new opportunities because now students can actually submit more, right? They can get feedback, they can correct their work, they can actually learn more that way. So that was, at least for me, sort of a first taste of that.

But I do think that as a course scales, particularly to the type of scale that we’re experiencing, at least here in our department, it’s important, I think, for us to think differently, particularly for instructors to think differently about sort of what’s my role in the class. I mean, I can’t behave in the way I would in a 15 student course and it just totally fall down, right? I mean, one thing I talk about with some of my colleagues is if I’m a bottleneck in the class, then something’s wrong, right? If a student. If the way to succeed in my class is that you need sort of individual help from me, then the course can’t be successful at the scale, right? Because I don’t have anywhere close to enough time to support that type of thing. So you end up just needing to think about your role in the class differently and how the course works differently.

I think that that’s been largely a positive experience, at least here for me, in the sense that I think that we found ways to sort of replicate some of the practices that you might get away with in a smaller class, but just sort of doing them differently, right? So, for example, one of the things that we do in 124 that’s very consciously modeled after a smaller class environment is we do sort of individual student outreach because you can imagine you’re in a small class, you do poorly on an assessment. You know, the professor might say, hey, you know, come see me in my office or something like that. And my, you know, offer some individual guidance. Like, I can’t do that for the class, but I have enough staff and we have data. And so it’s not based anymore on me noticing personally as I’m handing out the papers, like, oh, gosh, okay, you know, I see a D here. Like, I should make a mental note of that, which I’m going to forget probably half the time. So now it’s just done differently, like we do for analytics. It’s a little bit more behind the scenes, it’s a little bit more data driven, but the result is still the same thing, which is that someone in the class reaches out to you and says, hey, what’s going on? Is everything okay? It didn’t do very well in the last quiz. I just want to remind you, we have these resources. Do you want to meet up and talk about things? And we’re still trying to figure out better ways to do this and more ways, I think, to kind of try to. At this point, the student success rates in the course are quite good, but there is this group that we think can potentially do better, and we have resources partly because of all the automation we’ve done in other areas. So it’s like, okay, well now to what degree do we want to or feel comfortable sort of over allocating resources to really try to help students who might not be doing as well as they would like? So we’re still thinking about that, but we’ve been talking about that this semester and some new ideas there.

So, yeah, it is different at the same time. I mean, I don’t think, I really don’t think that if 1,000 students want to take any class that even if you could do this, breaking it into 20 student groups and having that many faculty is the right way to do it. I think actually that is frequently the worst possible approach at that point because, you know, you end up with, you know, 50 courses that are all slightly different. And then the course that’s next, that’s trying to build on top of what you’re doing, has to deal with like, whatever the intersection is of all these sets, which turns out to be very small in terms of what students, what can we count on students knowing? One of the things I talk about with my staff is I think one of our jobs is to try to produce consistent outputs for later courses. So if all of my students don’t know something, that’s okay, because then the downstream course can assume that they don’t know that. But if 70% of my students know something, it’s like, is that actually helpful or not? Because the downstream course probably still might need to think about what to do about that chunk that hasn’t quite mastered that.

Aaryaman: Are there any changes that you expect to happen from the department side or you think should happen with how things are right now?

Geoff: I think the department. And I don’t know how much of this has been conscious and how much of it has just been people making sort of local decisions, but I think the department has been pretty good about this. Like, when I look at how some of these issues are handled at other institutions, I think we’ve avoided some of the mistakes. Like. Like I said, I mean, I think to me, taking a large course, breaking it up into smaller pieces, even if the pieces are still quite large, right. Is not. Not a good use of time. You end up with a lot of duplication, a lot of inconsistency. I’ve got friends who work at other universities whose whole job it is to try to coordinate the instructors of a class because there’s so many instructors, and it’s important for them to be consistent. So now we have someone else whose time is valuable, who could be better spent, who’s now in charge of coordinating the instructors, who themselves are doing a lot of duplicate work. It’s kind of like if we took all this time and figured out how to get it to be additive rather than duplicative, we’d actually have a lot of time that could be spent on other things in the class.

That said, I think there’s still. There’s still a little bit of a mental shift here, because I think some of this comes back to this idea which sort of connects to what we were talking about at the very beginning of, like, what is an instructor’s role in class? You know, because on some level, I think from a traditional perspective, the instructor’s job is to perform the material for the students. Live. And if you don’t do that anymore, then I think some people are like, well, what are you doing in the class? Do you do anything? Do you just sit back and, I don’t know, like, wait for something to happen or. Yeah, or just, like, you know, I don’t know, spend a lot of time reading or get a side job or something. Like, you know what, how are you contributing to the course at that point? I think that’s a valid question. I think that there’s a lot of great things.

Like, you know, we have the follow on course to mine has two instructors now, right, where we have a. We hired a fantastic new colleague, Eula Schatz, who’s brand new and she’s been co teaching, of course, with Michael. And we’ve had to deal with a little bit of sort of like, why are we assigning two instructors to this course? I’m like, well, let’s see, it’s huge, right? It’s got a thousand students in it. It’s still relatively new. Like we first taught it two years ago. There’s a ton. Like, they’ve come up with this fantastic plan for all this cool stuff they’re going to do to improve the class. So there’s like clearly tons to do, right? So I don’t know, I mean, I feel pretty good about that situation. But I do think, like there is again, I mean, there’s this different conversation about kind of like, what is an instructor’s job, right? Like, what are we really supposed to be doing if we’re not just. My colleague Margaret Fleck uses this great expression, droning at the chalk face. That’s her longer, more amusing version of lecturing. So if we’re not doing that, what are we doing? What’s our contribution to the course? And I think that. I think that there are great answers to this, but it requires a little bit of a mental shift to start to look at what people are doing differently.

Juan David: So the operating system class define your life in many ways. You ended up doing operating systems, you ended up doing grad school. That’s how you met your wife. So many things that change. Something that I find very interesting, unique about you is that you’re one of the few people I know that met their wife through email. Not quite in my generation, obviously we’re coming from different generations, but.

Geoff: Well, we didn’t quite meet.

Juan David: Like, what are you sending the email?

Geoff: We didn’t quite meet through email.

Juan David: I mean, personally, you ended up asking.

Geoff: We met, yeah, it’s a good story. I mean, we met at a. So, you know, and this goes sort of to one of the things that I think was really quite special in retrospect about Harvard, which was, you know, one of the things I will point out, right, as someone who’s seen a little bit of what is done at some of these places, like, there’s not necessarily a lot of super innovative education going on at some of these schools. Right. So that’s probably important for people to realize. Harvard is kind of making a lot of the same mistakes that we’re making in a lot of ways. But I think one thing was really neat about it for me was the residential life experience. Just like living there surrounded by interesting people. Being able to have a conversation like this over dinner right in the dining hall was really neat.

So when I got to graduate school, I really wanted to continue to participate in that. I missed it. I was living off campus, wasn’t very fun. I just sort of missed that atmosphere. So I applied for this job, which Harvard calls a resident tutor, which is, again, sort of a glorified ra, but it’s nice to glorify it. So as part of that, you get to live in one of the undergraduate residences in a pretty nice suite, and you get. You get meals, you get a meal plan. And the food there is pretty good, at least compared to some of the pictures I see and write it at the food here.

So it was actually the orientation for that program that my wife and I met. And so we started to talk about study abroad and some other things. And she just has this incredible spirit to her. So after that, you know, because I’m. I’m kind of like somewhat socially awkward and a little bit of a chicken, like, I didn’t ask for her phone number at the time, but I was able to look her up on the Internet, which was, at least in my life has been good, for one thing. I was able to. And it’s funny, later we, you know, we laughed about this and she says, you know, I. It was like I even had a website, right? Because I think, like, her friend had helped her set this up. But I was able to find her and I sent her an email and we started to exchange emails before we. We actually went on a date together. And yeah, some of her earlier emails are sort of amusing in retrospect, but. But fun to read back on.

So. So, yeah, I mean, it was. Yeah, it was. It was cool. And she’s just someone who’s. I mean, really kind of the center of my life and somebody that I just can’t imagine so sort of existing without at this point. But yeah, was just a very sort of captivating person. And it’s funny. Like, she and I look back on our early relationship and it was probably like six months where. I don’t know. I’m certainly not. Don’t feel like relationship advice is within my strike zone. But there was A period of time where I think we were sort of like not sure what we were doing. It was kind of like we were hanging out a lot together. We always enjoyed spending time together, but there was just this level of just like ease to it. That was nice. I think, you know, I think sometimes like that even that quote from Margot. I mean, I think sometimes some of the relationships that we’re in in our life are hard and it’s easy to sort of mistake the difficulty for significance or importance or value. And then you meet somebody and you’re like, oh, wow, this is just really easy and you’re really fun to be around. So like, yeah, that feels like a good long term situation. So, so yeah, that was, that was cool. But yeah, we, I still have those emails actually. I think like some of them, or she saved them, we have them in old email accounts. But yeah, no, that was, that was neat. That was something that. And, and you know, again, like that sort of really informed the rest of our time at Harvard together. And you know, we just started to live, live a shared life, which has been awesome.

Aaryaman: Do you believe in coincidences or luck?

Geoff: I think, I don’t think I believe in. I think over time there’s enough things in life that add up that you sort of decide that some things have gone a certain way. Which is, which is fine. I think humans have a tremendous. Like one of the things we do with our lives is we try to make meaning, right. Like we take the raw material of our life and we try to make meaning from it. We try to find meaning in it. And I think that’s a tremendously. People do this in, I mean, a lot of human activity you can frame along those lines. Like a lot of things that people do in life are based on trying to find, create, extract meaning from, from their existence. And so I think like that type of, you know, thinking is a way of doing that and it’s fine, right? Because like, at the end of the day I think there is meaning. But you know, again, I think if enough, if you go through life long enough and enough sort of strange things happen to you, eventually a couple of them will kind of line up in strange ways. But where were you going to go with that question?

Aaryaman: I was just. Because it’s funny because I like looking back, it always feels like that is like, it’s insane how that happened. Like it, like how the, how everything just aligns for something to happen. It doesn’t feel that special in the moment, but when you look back it’s just like, wow.

Geoff: Like, so I will say, and I give my. I give Susanna complete credit for this. With both of our dogs, I feel like that has felt sort of like either very, very good timing or some type of higher order, you know, intervention of some kind. Because, I mean, our first dog, Choo Choo, you know, literally, like we had been talking at a low level about getting a dog, but I certainly wasn’t going to do anything about it. It was just like something fun to talk about, go on websites, see pictures of pre dogs and stuff like that. And then my Susanna’s friend Jessica, who’s a big animal lover, was visiting and she’s like, let’s go to the Humane Society. And I was like, people do that. Humane Society. They didn’t know where it was, you know, so we were in the car, go to the Humane Society, walk in there and saw these dogs barking. And there’s this like one kennel without a name on it. And we’re like, oh, that dog looks interesting. And, you know, took that dog home and, you know, he lived with us for lost track. 14, 13, 14 years, something like that. So that felt like, okay, you know, because I think he had been there for a couple of days. And it’s just a wonderful dog. It wasn’t doing very well at the shelter, but once we got him out of there, he was. He was just a fantastic dog.

And then our latest dog was sort of a similar thing where it was like, okay, we’d start to look a little bit, but, you know, we went, we went out to Bloomington. I think it’s actually to petsmart of all places, because they were doing some sort of adoption event with this organization that we had found online. And we had seen this other dog, which we were curious about was a puppy, because for some reason I was like, oh, we should get a puppy. Which is always, I don’t know, whatever. There’s a lot of dogs out there, only some of them are puppies. And we walk in and my wife sat down with Gracie, which was not the dog. We were looking for some other dog who was there. And 20 minutes later she was like, you know, I think we should take this one. She has a knack for it for. For finding good dogs.Aaryaman: But it’s like some of the best things just happen randomly. Almost like you. You can’t even plan it. You can’t expect it.

Geoff: Or quietly. Yeah, that’s another way to put it. Like, just like in ways that, like, you think about later. We’re like, oh, wow, this is really good. Like, how did this happen? And you realize you kind of didn’t see it. Didn’t see it coming. So, yeah, that’s the nice way to think about it.

Juan David: So Choo Choo passed away about two years ago. And probably affect you a lot after 14 years. You know, what was the thing that affects you the most? You know, because in the beginning you were just unsure about, you know, you know, should we get it or not? And then after 14 years, you know, it really affects your life. And you know, you also share your life with a dog after that, that many years.

Geoff: I mean, I’m not like, I don’t consider myself to be a particularly emotional person, but I think that, you know, it’s interesting. My wife and I were talking about grief recently, right. Because she was. We were just talking about like, the degree to which, like, grief, if you think about all the human emotions, right, like, grief is the one that has like the most physical manifestations, right. Like, there’s no equivalent of crying for any other emotion. It’s the only thing where our body actually starts to participate right. In. In the feeling.

So. Well, first of all, I mean, so. So Choo Choo was old for a long time, right? He was old when the pandemic started. And there was, I think, sort of, you know, my wife and I used to talk about him getting older and we would get teary eyed about that. That was years before he actually got old. And then he got old and he was just old for a long time. And it does feel like the. I mean, I certainly don’t want to try to put a good spin on like a global health catastrophe. But the pandemic came along to good time for Chuchu because he was at the point where he really did need more support and just having somebody around more. He was never a problem leaving him while I would go work and stuff like that, but. Well, we would go work. But he was, at that point, I think he was just starting to. He was starting to suffer from a little bit of doggy dementia. And so it was just nice to have somebody around.

We got this wheelchair for him because his back leg started to get less strong. And so he got this like, contraption. Wheelchair is not a great description for it, but you might have seen them out there. It sort of helps prop their lives up a little bit. And I remember when I bought that, I was like, is this really a good purchase? Like, how much longer is he gonna be alive? And then he used that thing for years, right? And he just loved it. Right. And he would.

So. So, you know, and one of the things that was really hard with him was that, you know, he was failing sort of mentally, right? Like he was physically kind of okay, but he was just like really increasingly confused and, you know, was doing things he wasn’t. He wouldn’t do. And it was like one of these slow processes, right? So it was kind of like you get used to one thing and then something else would start to happen. I get used to that. And so at some point, you know, it just put us in a position where we really had to kind of make a decision about, okay, like, at what point is the quality of life here not. Not good enough. And that was really hard for us, right? Because it was, you know, an animal that we loved and we, you know, had a lot of good years with and it, you know, it still feels like the right decision. And maybe also that maybe we waited even a little too long. Yeah, I don’t know.

But afterwards, I mean, like, we were both really upset for a while and I remember thinking, you know, I don’t know, I mean, I guess I maybe thought that there’d be some sense of relief, right? Because they’re like, you know, I mean, he would get up at night, right? And he got to the point where he wasn’t able to control his bladder as well. So he would get up and he would sleep. He was always sleeping in our bed. But he would get up and you would kind of need to wake up and take him downstairs, right? Which at that point he couldn’t go down the stairs on his own. So I would have to carry him and take him outside and let him, you know, use the bathroom. And then frequently he would get lost outside because he didn’t see as well and stuff like that. So. And this was happening like multiple times a night, right? So a couple times a night, like getting up, you know, grabbing this, you know, 40 pound dog, you know, you know, taking him down the stairs, and then you just think, okay, well at least I don’t have to do that anymore. But I remember thinking afterwards, like I’m, you know, even the state that he was in, right, Even the sort of like broken down, you know, dog that was struggling with a lot of stuff was just like such, just such a joy to have around, right? Like, it was like, it was just like this still a very big. Dropped down to nothing, right. When he was no longer with us.

So, yeah, I mean, we think about him a lot. We were just Thinking about him a few days ago, and my wife put together a beautiful photo album with pictures of him that we go through and stuff like that. And it’s been. I think, in some ways, I feel like we’re honoring him by having another dog in certain ways, because Gracie is not Choo Choo. I mean, Gracie is totally different. She’s a very different kind of dog. Attitudinally very different and behavioral in. In a lot of ways, but. And I think in some ways, it’s like, sort of allowed us to develop more of an appreciation of what Choo Choo was actually like. Because when you have a dog, it’s really the only dog that I’ve ever had, that we’ve ever had. My wife had some dogs when she was a kid, but for. At least for me, like, when you have a dog and it’s just the only dog you have, it’s easy for the dog to just be a dog. You don’t realize kind of what’s unique about the dog, that aspects of it that are really interesting. And then when you get another one, you’re like, oh, okay, that’s interesting. Like, she doesn’t do that or he doesn’t do that. But anyway, I’m rambling at this point, but, yeah, it was that. That was. That was probably one of the harder things that I’ve had to do, you know? You know, my father died about four years ago, but I didn’t have to. Like, there’s an agency that you have to take with a dog, right? Because it’s like, this is a creature that’s relying on you to make this decision, and that’s. That’s tough, too.

Aaryaman: Have you ever struggled with understanding people and, I don’t know, just, in a way, felt punished to be pragmatic in how you think?

Geoff: I mean, I’ve definitely. I definitely feel like I’ve struggled to understand people. Yeah. I don’t think that’s a strong. That’s a strong suit of mine. Punish for being pragmatic. I don’t think so as much. I think that’s probably something that I feel like I’ve been relatively rewarded for, Right. In terms of my life.

But, yeah, struggling to understand people. My wife and I are so different. We talk about this a lot, right. In the sense that, like, we were talking about this the other day, like I was saying. No, I think it’s taken me a long time to ever. To get to the point where I can imagine myself. Like, I can have this. So right now I’m Sort of sitting here trying to imagine, like, what do I look like from across the table? Like from your perspective. From your perspective. Like, you know, and. And I don’t do that a lot. I find it very difficult. My wife is like, I do that all the time. And in some ways I think she may do too much of that. Because she’s too worried about what other people are thinking about her. And I’m just like, I have a really hard time sort of just conceiving of that by trying to imagine, like, okay, like I’m walking the dog. I’m trying to imagine, like, what is the person across the street see when they look at me? Like, I don’t have that type of self awareness.

So. And I think that, like, at least to me sort of connects with the ability to understand other people. Because a lot of times what you’re trying to understand about other people is why are they responding to me in this way? But if you have a difficult time understanding the impression that you’re making on them, then you’re sort of missing one of the steps that you need to take. But, yeah, pragmatism. I don’t know. I feel like that’s not been something that I’ve had a problem with or hasn’t been appreciated.

Aaryaman: What do you understand about people?

Geoff: What do I understand about people? It depends on the person. Yeah. This is something that I. That I feel like I’ve decided to try to work on more. Just in terms of like, trying to. Because for me, it just requires like a lot of active imagination. I remember reading David Foster Wallace talking about this once, Right. Where. Just like. Because I think he might have been a person that had similar struggles with this. But it was like, for him, he saw it as a jumping off point to like, exercise your imagination. So I remember there’s a little. I think this is from. So you think this is water. He gave this commencement address at Kenyon College once that got printed into a book. You guys might have seen it. Um, but he talks about, like being stuck in traffic and being upset by somebody in front of him in a car and then just trying to, you know.

And I think like, when. When you’re a little bit too intellectual, you sort of have to like, brute force this stuff. It’s just like, I just have to think my way through it. It’s difficult to, like, connect with this empathetic feeling. So I’m going to use my imagination to think, okay, well, what are the things that might be affecting this person right now, like, what are the things they might be upset about? Like, maybe they cut me off because, you know, they’re rushing to the hospital, or maybe they had a really difficult day. And sort of like you. You try to engage your mind in this sort of imaginative activity. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t come that naturally to me. So my wife is just much, much better at it. And I don’t. And I’m not saying that in terms of just like, oh, she’s just better at that. I think she’s better at it because she’s done it more like she engages in this type of thinking. I don’t think it’s just like, natural ability. I think that’s something that she’s learned how to do and it’s something that she puts to good use. In terms of, like, how she engages with people in the world, what are.

Juan David: You naturally good at? And how would you identify those natural. Natural abilities in your own self?

Geoff: I don’t know. Naturally good at. I mean, I think that’s a good question. I mean, I’m probably at least somewhat good at computer science. That’s sort of what I’m doing. Like, naturally good at. Like, when you’re my age, it’s difficult to separate out the time and energy you put into things versus the things that you were naturally good at. It’s like, what was I good at when I was like, six? That’s all the things I was naturally good at.

Susanna frequently talks about, like, the degree to which she feels like I’m a systems thinker. Like, she’s like, you think through, like, how systems interact with each other. And are good at sort of like, coming up with good designs for how things work. And I don’t think that’s, like, just a computer systems thing. I don’t hope not. I think it’s maybe more broadly applicable to other. Other things, but. But, yeah, I don’t know. It’s hard to say.

Again, at my age, I mean, you’re sort of aware of the things you’re not good at. Like, once you get to your. To your 40s, I think you’re kind of like, okay, I’ve got. You know. And also I think it’s, at a certain point, probably earlier is better. It just becomes, like, more interesting in life to, like, work on the things that you’re not good at. You know, like, you’re like, okay, well, I flex these things that I can do well. And I can still do those Things well. And I think it’s important in certain ways for me to continue to do some of these things well because they’re supporting objectives that I have. But there’s also all this stuff that, like, I’m very well aware of that I’m not particularly proficient at. And those are things that I should probably try to fix. Or work on.

My. My father used to give us this piece of advice. He said, you know, overcome your genetic inheritance. And so I think, you know, what he was basically telling us to do, and I do think about this now, is to sort of like, you know, look at me, look at your mom. Like, this is where your genes came from. Are the things you don’t like about us? Well, you know, those are probably things you’re going to do too. And so it takes a certain amount of work to sort of, like, push back against that and sort of try to rewire yourself and learn to adjust how you respond to certain things. But it’s worth it, I hope. I mean, it feels like a good project for the second half of life. Yeah.

Juan David: So far, I’ve seen college as a big playground. You know, tests and find out what you’re really good at and find out things that you might like doing. So that could include, you know, taking your class or doing STEM comedy or doing this thing just like doing a bunch of different things. But at some point, it’s like you said with relationships, there are some relationships that you can. They’re hard and you can really work and, you know, make it work, but there are some relationship that just. Just easy. And there are some things like, for instance, like, we’re trying to think about, okay, like, we’re graduating soon, what do we do after college? And there are some things that you can definitely make it work, and they’re gonna be really hard. And there are some things that just come easier to you. One more like one example is that we were. We made this website a couple weeks ago, and coding wasn’t super, super easy, but we could do it. And we did it and we were thinking. And then we wanted to make a video on the website just to release it. And we were trying to find actors randomly in this building. And it was hard and not because it was just, you know, it’s, you know, intrinsically hard. Just like, maybe there’s something about people that we didn’t have. So the same thing with the website, like. Like, we have a friend, he’s been coding since 10, and we, like, we asked him for. For Help and something he just did in, like, two minutes, Right? Like, that’s hard to say. Like, we should only focus on the things that are just easy to us. But it’s like there are things in life that, like you said, like, with your wife, it just. You sort of happens. And with work, I feel like there’s a parallel to that. Do you have anything interesting? Any interesting thoughts on it?

Geoff: No. I mean, I think it’s a great. Like, most of what you’re getting at here is, like, one of these tensions that’s, I think, just sort of like part and parcel of what’s fun about life, right? It’s just, like, there aren’t easy answers to these things. And a lot of it is, like, constant sort of recalibration, right? Of figuring out, okay, you know, like, just. It’s almost like balance or whatever, but just like these constant little. If you. If you imagine, like a bird in flight, right? If you. Even when you look at a bird that’s, like, soaring, like, it’s constantly making these little adjustments, right? To prevent it from whatever, Right. Just sort of keep it. To keep it stable.

So I think that this. And I used to think about this a lot, right? Because I used to think about, okay, there are things that you might enjoy doing. And there’s sort of like this quadrant of, like, how much do I like doing this thing, right? And am I good at it or not? And people. There’s a lot of different thinking about this, right? Because I think some people are like, well, you should find the thing you’re good at and just do that thing, right? Like, an old office mate of mine is this guy named Cal Newport who you might have heard of. He’s written a bunch of books about flow and how to succeed in college and stuff like that. And one of his, I think, sort of pieces of advice that sounds a little controversial is just like, forget what you’re passionate about, right? It doesn’t matter. Do the thing you’re good at. Get really good at that thing, and then you will discover that you can have an impact by doing this thing. So that’s one way to look at it.

At the same time, sometimes the things we’re drawn for are things that we have a little bit more fuel for dealing with adversity and stuff like that. So I don’t know. I don’t think there’s an easy answer. I mean, I think that when you. Yeah. I mean, when you. When you come up with something in your life, like you, like the experience you had of, okay, this is hard, right? I mean, I think the first thing to think about might be why, like, what about it is hard? And I think that’s also true when you find something that’s easy. Although people don’t tend to do that, right? Because they’re just like, there’s nothing to think about. But I think. And I think actually, you know, back to the example of my relationship with Susanna, like, I think as. It’s actually been interesting, because I think over the last decade, we’ve actually realized a lot of the reasons that sort of we do. We are compatible with each other, right? It turns out there’s, like, a lot of similarities to, you know, so that only emerged a lot later, right? But I think sort of understanding difficulty and then sort of.

But I think then there’s this choice of, like, is this something I want to grapple with or not? And I don’t. Like, there are so many challenges you can take on in life, right? So just thinking about life from the perspective of, oh, I’m just going to move to the next challenge, and anything that comes up that’s difficult for me, I’m just going to take this on, I don’t think is a particularly thoughtful way to approach things, right? Because there’s just, you know, there’s just a lot of stuff out there, right? Sometimes when you come up with something that’s hard, the right thing to do is just say, fine, I’m not going to do that thing, or, I’ll find help. I’ll find someone who’s good at this thing and they’ll help me, and there’s something that I’m good at. So there’s that aspect of it, too, which is putting together teams that have complementary abilities. But there’s no easy answer to this question. It’s one of these things that I think just. There’s no formula, right? I mean, I think the right thing to do is to be thoughtful about it and at least try to understand what you’re doing, right? Like, if you’re going to do something, at least have some sense of, like, this is what I’m doing. This is what I’m trying to accomplish, and I’m going to kind of keep an eye on things from that perspective. But, you know, but even there, right? I mean, like, people do do these things that are sort of highly instinctive, and sometimes they work out really well, right? So. So it’s hard to say.

I mean, I think that, you know, there. I mean, I do think, like, leaving college, it’s interesting looking back on it in the sense that I think one of the things that’s a difficult dynamic for this period of your life is simply that there are like, this is like, a good time to take risks, right. And try to do new things. It doesn’t feel that way, right. It feels like, oh, I’ve got to graduate and, like, find a job and, like, start doing money. And, you know, people are in debt. I get that. But, you know, the pressure to seek out stability is only going to grow, right. As you go farther downstream. You get older, you start to have a family to support potentially. Like, you’re thinking about retirement or whatever. So it’s all this stuff that just gets layered on later, right. That I think can make it more difficult to do sort of crazy things.

So. But it’s hard, right. I think. And I. And in some ways, I mean, I think that that’s one of the. Maybe the rarely enumerated problems with how expensive college has gotten, right. And how much, you know, people are expected to take on in terms of debt in order to finance. It is just the sense of you get done, and you’re in your early 20s and this is a decade where you could go off and do wild and crazy experimental things, and yet you have this massive bank account or negative bank account balance that you’re trying to pay off, and that encourages you to do safer things. So that’s rough. I can certainly see that. Yeah, I don’t know. That’s a good question. Yeah.

Juan David: I mean, that’s the question we’re trying to figure out right now is like, you know, like what? Like, how do we approach life about college and like, you know, how do we follow our curiosity and, you know, not worry too much about jobs or whatever other people think, you know, think people worry about.

Geoff: Well, I mean, but a job isn’t necessarily like, A job is, you know, not necessarily something that can hold you back. I mean, there are. I mean, particularly for. For creative, you know, hardworking people. There’s incredible things you can do in the world that are like, part of a job. Like, it is a job, right? But, you know, it’s not going to necessarily feel like one. It’s going to feel like fun, right. Or it’s going to feel hard and challenging and interesting and rewarding and difficult and frustrating. But it’s going to be, you know, something that, like, I don’t know. I don’t know if I feel like I have a job. I mean, there’s stuff I’M supposed to do. But I think that’s maybe not necessarily the full definition of a job that somebody might think of where it’s just like there are expectations in life, but not all of them come from a job anyway.

So. Yeah, I mean, I think that there are. I mean, one thing I will say, you’re putting me back into like career counselor mode, which I haven’t been in for a while. It’s a nice thing about teaching an early course is that I don’t have to talk to seniors too much about what to do next. I mean, even back when I was at Harvard, I mean, I feel like every, I rarely talked to a senior there who I felt like had actually done a rigorous job search. It’s like, it’s not easy, right. I think people are tired. They feel like it’s senior year, I want to just go have fun. Right. And there are some mechanisms that universities use, like the career fair that just happened to like bring employers to you and set up this nice banquet for you to, you know, enjoy where you can go and like stand in line and hit out resumes, right? A strange thing, but, but like there are so many jobs in this country, so many employers, like so many people out there doing interesting things and like 99.99% of the interesting ones are never going to come to campus. They’re never going to reach out to you, right? They probably don’t even have a form on their website for you to like fill out and submit your resume to their AI tool, right? Like, it just like there’s so much out there and, but it just takes a lot of work, right? A lot of just like pounding, you know, pounding outdoors and, and finding out what you want and learning about areas. Learning about companies and what they’re doing.

But it’s hard, right? And again, like, I certainly don’t hold it against anyone because I saw, you know, even, even students at top tier institutions don’t do this, but if you do, I do think that you’ll discover that there’s a ton of cool stuff out there and jobs that you probably don’t. You can’t even imagine in terms of companies that are doing things that again, you’re going to go there and you’re going to think this is, I don’t know, fun is the right word. I’m not sure work should necessarily be fun, but deeply meaningful, right? It’ll be something that will make you feel like you want to learn more, feel like you want to put the skills you already have to good use and just sort of be engaging in that way.

I mean, I think that if you think about it, right, I mean, universities are set up to try to encourage students, like you said, to experiment, but also try to try and encourage them to grow. But something else that can really lead to a lot of growth is when you find something that you care about, that something about the world that you want to make better, right? And then you sort of realize, oh, geez, like, I can. I can do this little part of it, right? But then there’s all this other stuff that I’m going to need to figure out how to do, right? And then pretty soon, like, you have sort of, like, involved yourself in this other process of growth, right?

So I still remember anyone I started teaching in Buffalo. Like, I knew nothing about web development, right? I was like, oh, I guess my course should have a website. Like, that might be kind of important, right? And like, I don’t know, 10, 15 years later, like, I’m doing web dev all the time, right? Partly because I just realized, like, okay, like, this is like a tremendously important, you know, portal for students to access things, right? And to engage with the material and stuff like that, right? But that just came out of me just sort of like meeting the problem face to face and just being like, okay, you know, like, this is something that I really need to work and then getting. Getting leveling up and developing those skills, basically just by doing stuff for work, right? I mean, I. I put a website together for Susanna. She does. She’s an artist. She does these incredible. She calls them. She calls them art. She calls it art journaling. But I think she’s sort of rounding down what she’s doing. It’s like these collages that she builds with paint and clippings for magazines and stuff like that. So I put up a website for her about a year ago, and as I was doing that, I was like, I think this is like one of the first websites I’ve ever built that’s not, like, for work. You know, it was super fun. Like, I had a great time doing it, and her work is incredible. So it was fun to get it out there. But. But, yeah, but I mean, that was one of these things where I just, like, you know, a lot of personal growth in there in terms of me learning new things, but all just driven by trying to solve a problem. So if you find a good place to work, that can happen. That will be part of it.

Aaryaman: You know, one of the things that you’ve written about is you not wanting to work a job under a boss because you like being your own boss, right?

Geoff: That’s right. So I’m insubordinate. Why is that?Aaryaman: Why do you. How do you know that you cannot work for someone else?

Geoff: I don’t know. Maybe it’s. I had a very demanding mother. I’m just like, I’ve had enough of that, you know, I don’t know. I just, like, I think that I never. It’s possible I just never sort of connected with a place that had values that matched mine. I mean, I certainly am not going to argue that. I know a ton about different types of tech companies. I think there’s a few opportunities that I passed up that I’m kind of happy. In retrospect, that’s like, yeah, that turned out to be kind of weird, but. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s just. I think that’s one of those things where, you know, maybe I’m, you know, maybe I’m not quite at the next phase of that aspect of my personality where it’s like, I understand that about myself. I’m not sure I understand why. And hasn’t caused too many problems yet. So I’m just like, okay, I’m just going to let that one ride.

But. But, yeah, I’ve definitely noticed that, like, I have a hard time. I like working independently. I think that is, you know, something that goes back a long time, though. Because I remember being a kid and, like, just really enjoying spending time alone, like, doing things by myself. I was, you know, realizing. I mean, I still really enjoy reading. That’s something that I’ve been doing more of over the past couple of years. Um, and I. I was telling Susanna. I was saying, I think that, like, one of the reasons I like to read as a kid is just, like, it’s one of the few activities you can do as a child where you’re by yourself and, like, people think it’s good, you know, always reading, you know, And I. I used to read these terrible books over and over again.

I read. I got really into Tom Clancy. Super embarrassing to admit, I have to say. I read all those Tom Clancy books, like, over and over again, like. And they were like, these Jack Ryan. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I read all of those books at least 10 times each, really. Just. I wish I could have those hours of my life back. But, you know, they were, like, really thick. So it was, like, great for impressing adults. They’re like, oh, wow, he’s reading such a big book. They’re such terrible books, right? They’re just. Whatever. I mean, it’s fine. They’re actually. Some of them are good. They’re just, you know, they’re about war and fighting and bombs and stuff. Like. Okay, anyway, it feels like very much like a kid book, but I guess I could have been reading, like, fantasy books or whatever. Like, there’s other genres, but I just. I don’t know. I feel like I’m trying to make up for it now by trying to read better stuff.

But I actually. I remember years later, like, I was traveling around Europe on this, like, long backpacking trip, and I got to. I think I was in Prague, and I walked by this bookstore and. And there was the latest big, thick Tom Clancy book, like, staring at me. And I was like, no, Geoff, don’t do it. Like, you know what’s going to happen. It’s terrible. And I couldn’t resist. I walked in there and I bought the stupid book, and I, like, sat there for, like, two days in Prague and, like, surrounded by these amazing things that I should have been doing that would be way more interesting. Just, like, reading this terrible book. And it was one of those late ones, too, I think it was like the Bear and the Dragon or something where you’re like, okay, this is just like, you’re just selling this to fund your divorce settlement or something. It was just, like, a terrible book. That book just needed a multiple years of editing that it did not receive. But I finished it, and I was like, okay, I can go. Go back to my trip. I just felt terrible reading. And that was the last one of his books I think, that I actually read, because, again, I was sort of aware halfway through it that this is a terrible use of time. And yet I’m still doing it.

But, yeah, but. But again, like, as a kid, it’s like, okay, I can do this by myself, right? No one’s going to, like, you know, force me to, like, go. Go read with your brother. But. But yeah, I think that’s something that. That I am aware of about myself. So.

Aaryaman: So part of this, working independently. I agree. Completely agree with you. Because I came to the same realization last summer when I did an internship at a place, and I was like, I can’t. I can’t seem to care about something which someone else is telling me to do. Like, if I don’t come to it naturally, I can put in my 100%.

Geoff: Yeah, right.

Aaryaman: Is that a part of the reason why you chose not to join Facebook when it started?

Geoff: Probably on some Level. Yeah, there’s probably just a. Like, this isn’t my idea, you know, like, it’s not. It’s not really my. It wasn’t my thing, you know, like. But it’s a good question. I mean, I’m also pretty brisk adverse too, right? So that’s. That also played into it, honestly, I think the idea of, like, dropping out of graduate school and flying all the way across the country to do this weird thing felt a little nuts.

And. And also, I mean, I will say, like, the. Just to tell another component of this story, my thesis advisor at the time, Nat Welsh, was a veteran of sort of like the first. The first tech boom, like back in the early aughts. Like, he was in graduate school at the time. And he would talk about how, like, people would just cold call their graduate student office. Like, the phone would ring and he’d be like, who is this? It’s like a graduate student office. Like, not sure why they even had a phone, but somebody would pick it up. It would just be a recruiter. And they were just like, calling random Berkeley phone numbers, like, just trying to get someone to pick up because they wanted them to come [email protected] or whatever. So he had had some. Some friends who had. Who had basically done this, right?

And, you know, I remember, like, after, you know, I talked to Mark, I went to talk to Matt about this. I was like, well, what do you think? And he’s like, okay, well, here’s what’s going to happen, right? Where you’re going to get there and it’s going to be fun for like six months, right? And then they’re going to bring in like, all the guys with the suits and corporate whatever, because he’s basically going to sell the company to somewhere and then it won’t be fun anymore, and then you’ll go somewhere else. And he had seen people kind of bounce around. It’s not clear that that’s not fun, to be frank. And some of the people that did that probably had a good time. But I think it’s remarkable because of course that never happened. And it could have happened a bunch of times around the time that I think we were having this conversation. I’m pretty sure that I think Yahoo offered like maybe a billion dollars for Facebook at some point, some pretty large amount, right?

And I actually asked Mark this question. I said, you know, are you going to sell the company? Because I was nervous because I had this conversation with Matt. He was like, well, I have a number in my head and nobody has Ever met that number. So, okay. But I think like in the history of Facebook, I mean, now Facebook has all of these other issues, but I always thought it was pretty remarkable that he sort of maintained control of it. And I think there is something about just the fact that his vision for what Facebook could do was always ahead of somebody else’s. I mean, that’s why nobody ever met the figure. Because he always felt that Facebook was more valuable than anything else. And I think if you’re a founder, you kind of have to feel that way. Or it’s helpful to feel that way. But yeah, I don’t know. I mean, it’s one of these sort of just two roads to Virginia Wood sort of moments. And I think now, I mean, I just feel like a lot less comfortable with Facebook as a. As a. Even just as a social media platform. So I feel like. But I’m older and my feelings about that kind of stuff change over time. So at the time I think people thought it was pretty harmless, but it’s not clear that we were right or not.

Aaryaman: Have you ever considered being a founder?

Geoff: Yeah, I’m actually like a year or two into like a small auto grading startup that I started with a former CS125 staff member. So we’re still puttering along. We haven’t really made a ton of progress. We’re. We’re building out some new stuff and sort of slowly making inroads into certain things, I guess. I’m not, I wouldn’t say I’m terribly good at it. The selling part of it is not something that’s my strong suit. I was the, I was the kid in, you know, middle school who, when they had to go door to door to sell something, was just completely unable to complete the job. I was just like so upset. As soon as somebody would reject me, I would just like run home crying and then my parents would buy all them popcorn that they needed to buy. So that’s something that I’m aware of as a weakness that I need to fix. But. But on some level, I think like one of the fun things about working in the way that I do at the university is I get to sort of do that. In the sense that like, you know, 124 is sort of designed and implemented largely according to my specification, which is fun.

Juan David: I think something interesting from the story before is that you were the ta and Andrew, which was the partner of Mark, he was, you know, he was pissed off because, you know, he was just working, you know, not doing the classwork and just doing this other thing that he believed was more important or more interesting or whatever. Which is. Comes back to the idea of just doing whatever thing is most interesting and then just hoping things would work out. Which, you know, it’s really hard because, like, once you’re doing the thing, it’s like, you know, everyone, like, looks at you and like, you know, are you.

Geoff: The crazy one or am I the crazy one?

Juan David: Or, like, you know, like the. If you, like, the career for. For instance, like, everyone’s going. And, like, if I don’t go, it’s like, are you the crazy one or am I the crazy one? Yeah, it’s like, you know, it’s something I learned from you. It’s like, you know, the importance of just working on your own projects. And first, because, you know, you learn so much. And second, because you can get so much more out of, like, that energy that you get from working on your own thing is just such a unique and very specific, specific thing. And that’s something you also recommend to students a lot when you tell that sort of storage, you know, like, don’t worry too much about, like, you know, sure, you’re, like, you’re not, you know, you know, you may not do as well, but the. In the other side, like, you’re also getting other benefits that you may not be thinking about.

Geoff: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I. I think that, you know, there’s a. I think different people have to make kind of their own choices about kind of how they want to engage with some of this stuff. Like, for me, you know, like, it’s always been very. And I think because of what I do and because of what I teach, I’ve always felt like a certain level of comfort with doing a certain amount of development. Because I feel like, okay, well, this is what I’m teaching. So it’s sort of connected in a very direct way. And there’s also just a creative element to it. Which is that, like, you know, and I think one of the things that we don’t talk about enough in early computer science courses, including mine. Right. In just a field in general, is just this course, creative aspect to it.

You know, I started to understand myself a lot better when I started to. I have a neighbor who’s a painter and actually teaches here at the university and has exhibited his paintings various places and stuff like that. And I started to talk to him about things, and I started to realize, okay, wait, like, this is making sort of sense to me, right? In the sense of, like, I feel like understanding myself as a creative has helped me realize, like, oh, okay, well, this is why I want to do this stuff. It’s not just to solve problems. That’s nice. That’s a nice side benefit. But there is something about just the act of creation itself, right? Which is very, very rewarding.

But, yeah, I mean, I think that people, like, there’s sort of this decision I think you make at various points where it’s like, okay, am I going to spend the time and energy to try to figure out how to do that, or am I just going to kind of, like, figure out some workaround or maybe I’ll, you know, team up with someone or there’s all these different approaches. And I’m not, certainly not arguing that doing it yourself is always the right way to do it. And in fact, one of the things when I talk to people who, particularly people who are getting started with software creation, that I think that people. A mistake people make often, I think is actually trying to do too much, right? Thinking like, oh, I need to, like, own every. Every line of code in this entire project. And it’s like, no, no, no. Like, you know, so it’s like if you’re building a website, it’s like, okay, I need some way for people to log in. Like, you could spend like six months implementing your own login system, right? Or just like, use the library and move on, you know, because, like, are you building a login system or are you building a website with a login system? It’s like the website presumably is going to do something else, right? So if that’s the thing you want to do, then frequently, like, you’re going to just sidestep some of these things where it’s like, okay, I have a. I have a dodge here.

So, yeah, I mean, I think it’s there. There’s a. There’s just like a. And again, I think, you know, for me, I also feel drawn towards, you know, I’m teaching students, like, the basics of how to get started in technology. To the degree that I feel like I’m trying to live out sort of some of what my own creed is. Right? Like, this is what I’m teaching students to do. Do I believe it or not? And I do believe it. I actually do think that we can use technology in positive ways. So part of my connection to that is like, I’m going to do this for my class. I’m going to try to find ways to do it to support my students, right? Because if I’m not, then, like, I don’t know. It just feels like I’m sending sort of a strange message, which is like, oh, I think everything’s fine, right? It’s like, no, I think we can do better, you know, so. So to me, it is always sort of felt like, somewhat aligned.

I do, you know, there are times where I do feel, like, somewhat odd, right? In the sense that I think I probably maintain a lot more software than a lot of other people who are doing similar jobs. But that’s okay. You know, people do the job differently, and that’s fine. And for me, this is sort of a healthy way to do things. And. And one that I was. Has proven to be pretty rewarding, so. And it works, right? I mean, I, like, at the end of the day, the thing that I’m always focused on is like, are students succeeding? Are they able to learn the material? So if they’re not, then, like, it. It being about me is not the right thing to think about, right? It’s like, can I do this in a way that’s actually going to help students succeed, right? If the right thing is to use some other tool or to use some other approach, like, have no problem with that, right?

So, I mean, I felt that, you know, it was interesting, too. I mean, you know, going back to talking about, you know, in classroom stuff. I mean, one of the things that I learned from the pandemic was just early on when we made this sudden transition to virtual instruction. Like, I could feel it, like, emotionally, sort of psychologically, the lack of the attention, right? Like, personally, like, I felt sort of bereft, right? Because, like, to be fair, to be frank, it’s fun to stand on a stage in front of a thousand people, right? And have everybody listen, right. And look at you, right? And when that ended, I was like, oh, geez, you know, I could feel like, this sort of sluggishness, and I think I was. That was the moment where I was like, okay, I have to. I have to think about this more, right? Because I have to think about, like, to what degree is this part of the course serving me and to what degree is it serving students, right? And I think that’s a very, very. It’s a tough thing to talk about with. With instructors sometimes, right? Because it is, like, on some level, the job needs to also be something that I want to do, right? But if there’s aspects of it that I’m doing entirely or maybe subconsciously for myself, right? That aren’t necessarily as effective for students. Maybe those are things that I need to think about.

Juan David: You say that you don’t have a job or you don’t feel like you have a job. And a lot of it has to do with the decisions you’ve made over the time of your life, especially at the previous institution that you were. And the biggest one that was that you decided to be yourself instead of conforming to whatever norms you were supposed to. So in what ways has the 10 year system fail?

Geoff: Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I think, yeah, just think carefully about what I’m going to say here. I mean, I think that the. I. Mean, I don’t know if I really feel comfortable with lifetime employment. I’m not really sure what it matters what industry we’re talking about. I mean, I think that, you know, you, you posted that on Reddit today, that, that old, old, you know, thing from, from the Onion, right? Which is like sort of, you know, the joke there, of course, is that it’s the opposite on some level.

Like I will say, like in my time in the mobile systems community, which is where I was doing research, I can probably count on one hand the number of times when I met someone who I thought this person is like, using tenure the right way. And there were a few people, right, where there was just like, they were doing these crazy things, right? And not crazy in the sense of just like unproductive. They were just taking big risks. They were trying really aggressive, interesting things that might not pay off.

But I’m not sure tenure is really necessarily the entire problem here too, right? Because particularly in fields like computer science, in order to do anything, like, first of all, you have students involved, right? And so it’s hard to take big risks when there are students involved because they may be hurt by risks that you take. You also have to get funding, right? Typically. And so the joke is like, well, okay, fine, you get tenure, you get the freedom to do anything you want with no dollars, right. And no students. And I think on some level the system aspects of the system are designed more around people that want to speak freely about stuff, right. If the only thing that I can do that’s dangerous is open my mouth, then air unpopular opinions, right? That’s one thing. But modern science just requires too many resources and those resources are allocated by the community. And all of that, I think, still creates boundaries and blinders. It makes it hard for people to do really, really novel stuff.

I think, you know, looking back on it, I mean, I Don’t think I’m a particularly good. I think over time, I’ve probably started to realize that was just not a good fit for me in terms of a job. If I had known that teaching faculty positions existed back at the time, and if I had some good mentorship about it, I might have just started doing the thing that I’ve discovered I like to do. But at the time, I sort of felt like, okay, well, I’ll probably be able to do enough research to get by, but I’m really kind of doing this because I want to teach. And when I didn’t get tenure, there was certainly, I think, an opening for me to stay a few more years to try to publish a couple more papers. But I think by that point I was just like, no way. I just can’t do it. I’ve squeezed every last little bit of caring about research out of me, and I just don’t have anything left in the tank to be able to do anything like that.

But, yeah, I mean, I think that it’s interesting. I mean, I think we’re also starting, like, there’s starting to be more awareness, I think, of fraud in science. There’s been articles about this. There’s been a couple of people that were kind of caught doing some very, very lazy, you know, data manipulation. I wonder a little bit about where some of that stuff will go, because you feel like if you’re seeing that, that’s probably the tip of the iceberg, right? There’s probably a lot that’s going on, you know, behind the scenes that people aren’t talking about.

But I don’t know. I mean, I, you know, I definitely made some mistakes during that time. You know, looking back, thinking like, okay, you know, I was frequently trying to do things a little bit differently. I’m not sure that every thing that I did differently was really, like, a good idea, let’s put it that way. But, yeah, I mean, it was. I think it was one of these things that feels like it worked out well, you know, in the end. So it was not a particularly fun experience to go through. But I feel like I. There was. There’s a moment a couple years after I got here where I remember I sort of, like, standing in the kitchen in my house and just thinking, like. And not necessarily even in, like, this, like, happy way. I think I was right in the middle of doing something hard or complicated, but just thinking like, okay, I’m really content, right? I feel like I found a good place for myself, right? I feel like my, you know, Rather than sort of like, you know, and if you guys ever sailed, right? But when you’re, when you’re sailing, you’re trying to sail up when you basically kind of have to like zigzag, right? So you’re not going directly the direction you’re going. You’re always, you know, like trying to make progress. That’s sort of what it felt like to be a non teaching faculty. Is just constantly sort of like making this progress. And then, you know, as teaching faculty, it feels like, okay, well just now the wind’s just behind me. Like I don’t have to do that, which is cool.

So. But yeah, no, it’s probably, I’m thinking like, probably next year I think maybe I’ll have enough distance from that experience to kind of look back on a little bit. I’m a big fan of the number eight. So it’ll be eight years since 2016, when, when that happened. But. But yeah, I don’t know. I, I certainly can’t complain about the course my life has taken since then. So I don’t know.

Juan David: And you know, that’s the unique thing about you is that you, you know, most people, you know, they did a PhD and they have this idea in their minds that, you know, I want to, I want to become a tenure professor. And you could have stayed. You could have probably gotten tenure because the, the, I think the, at the end it was like six yes and like eight no or something like in two. It’s like, whatever.

Geoff: Yeah, abstain.Juan David: Abstain.

Geoff: Yeah. Yeah.

Juan David: So you could have stayed. You probably would have, could have gotten tenure. But like, that’s the thing about you. Like you did not want to compromise about doing something that, you know, wasn’t quite the right fit. And the only reason why I found the audience article was the other article I read that you posted, the, the best way to not get tenure, which was a wonderful article. But the, you know, like the, the thing about that specifically is about, you know, like now, like you look back.

Geoff: And, and you’re like, you know, you’re.

Juan David: Obviously happier and everything else. But in what ways do you think, you know, like now you look back, it’s like, okay, whatever, it’s fine, where you worked out. But in what ways do you feel like you’re, you know. And I guess one more thing that you wrote in the article was like the biggest thing that hurt you was speaking out for yourself. So I’m curious, like, in what ways are you censoring yourself today if you are?

Geoff: That’s a good question. Yeah, I mean, I, Yeah. So I think that, I mean, overall, I think there’s a good environment here, right, for, for, for people. I don’t think that. I mean, I’m not going to argue that, like, at times I feel a little bit like the. I mean, I’m, I’m somebody who is. And I think this also comes from sort of working with software, right? It’s just like you find a problem and you fix it, right? You don’t just like, don’t wait around. Don’t wait around, you know, sort of like write documents about why the problem exists. You’re just like, okay. And it’s not personal, right? It’s not like, you know, there’s just a bug in this system, right, that we’re using, right? So it’s just like, fix the bug, right? Like, I’m not blaming anybody. You know, sometimes the bugs are human systems, right? But it’s just like. Well, let’s just look at a silly example. For a long time we had these really difficult time getting core staff hired to start at the beginning of the semester. There were reasons for this because in the past it was like, okay, the staff we were hiring were used to grade midterms. The midterms don’t happen until the middle of the semester, so we have time to get them appointed. And it’s like, no, no, no. The staff I’m hiring need to be able to work with students on day zero. This just happened for multiple years and we kept talking about it and Filem was like, okay. I think finally the message got across and it was like, again, I mean, HR works all the time. They’ve got a lot of work to do. So I think it was just about them understanding, okay, well, we need to shift this task to a different time period because the expectations are different. And now it’s fixed. I don’t know. I mean, I think I’m.

I mean, the thing that I think I’m sort of increasingly concerned about is to some degree, like the, the ways in which we’re gatekeeping into the field. Into computer science. So you know the university here, right? This is a public land, grand land grant institution, right. On some level, I think it has a mandate to provide education to the state of Illinois, which still receives a fair amount of support from admission rates into the university, have historically recently been. They’re going down, but it’s not clear they’re really going down for meaningful reasons. But maybe about 40%, right? 40%, 50% into computer science. It’s like six, right? I really worry about, you know, first of all, like, is this, is this appropriate, right. For. For an institution like this? I mean, selectivity is not the thing. First of all, I have a lot of problems with selectivity in general, but the University of Illinois doesn’t feel like it should be a core value here. The core value should be, we’re going to try to make space for as many people as possible.

There’s also a question of like, who is in that 6% and do we have any idea who’s in the 94% that we’re not admitting and are those people that can succeed here and people that maybe we’d like to have as. Part of our program? Right. And one of the things that makes us uncomfortable, it’s always zero sum, right? Because like, okay, we did admit students and they’re here and that’s fantastic. But there is this large chunk of students and I think partly because of how we do admissions, it’s also this thing that’s like this invisible, I don’t want to use that word, but it’s this invisible thing. We don’t have to confront it. We don’t have to look those students in the eye and say, you weren’t good enough to be a computer scientist here. And the reality is a lot of them are. And this is one of the things I see in my course is when we look at how majors do, how non majors do, no, they’re different. So that concerns me a lot.

And I think that it’s interesting because I think there’s this broader conversation happening now at a national level about what’s going on these institutions and to what degree this is having an effect on our society. I’ll name drop here, just briefly, because I have to say I went to college with a bunch of people and got to know them and a bunch of them are doing really cool things. But this guy, John Friedman, who I knew when I was at Harvard, is now part of this group, Opportunity Insights, that’s actually behind a lot of these reports that have been written up in the New York Times and places like that. He’s an economist, I think, at Brown, maybe at Princeton. So I have to say, just like from a distance, I’m like super proud of him because this is incredibly high impact work and like super interesting. But I wonder, I mean, I feel like that group has looked a lot at the Ivy League schools for obvious reasons. They’ve looked recently at what they call like near Ivies or something, sort of public institutions that are really selective Michigan was looked at. Illinois has been sort of flying under the radar screen a little bit there because our overall admission weights aren’t that low. But into CS is very, very small. And so, you know, is that good? Should we be. Let’s put it this way. I would really like to see the department do more to expand access to our programs and particularly to actual degree programs.

Computer science, we’ve done a little bit to expand access to the minor or the expansion to 124 was part of that. We’ve seen expansion 128 and 225. So the department has made some changes to try to make the minor more accessible. But I don’t think that’s enough. I mean I think we need to allow students to come here and get a CS degree if they want it. And I think this is a field wide problem. We talk a lot. There’s a lot of awareness in computer science about sort of supporting students from diverse groups while they’re here. But the problem is in most places, admissions is the place where we’re doing the most damage to students from those groups because they just don’t get in. Or they don’t apply. You know, here.

And you know, once you start to think about this stuff, it sort of starts to blow your mind. Right. So when you apply to Illinois, you guys probably know this. I didn’t like I. This is one place where my privilege sort of gets in the way because like I went to a school where it’s like I can major anything I wanted. Like there were no rules. It was just like you had to fill out a form. You apply to Illinois, you have to choose two majors to be considered by. Like this on its own is like a huge problem. And this is like a well known problem. Like if you talk to economists, they study problems like this. If you have students from Illinois that really need to come here, right. Maybe because for financial reasons or they’re going to qualify for the Illinois promise, do you think they’re going to put computer science as one of those? If they don’t, if they’re not like really confident they’re going to get in? Of course not. Because they’ve blown a slot. They only get two choices. So I mean personally I think if we’re going to be at 6% admissions, there should be a box on the form that you can check that says I would like to be considered for admission to computer science should not count against your other choices and we should look at everybody. Because I suspect that this type of thing is really having an impact on students from certain groups that we really like to admit and who will succeed here.

So anyway, I think that’s the thing that I feel like just increasingly uncomfortable with as the years have gone by. Just because you kind of see the impact that it’s having on the field. I think it has some negative impacts within the university on the student population that we have here as well. And it’s also just boring. Like, I mean, like to me, I mean I’m proud of what we do in 124, but I would actually like more of a challenge, let’s put it that way. Like I would, I would. And I think again, we’ve sort of challenged ourselves by just like blowing the doors open and taking in anyone who wants and really trying to do great work and put students on a path to success. But we can do more. Let’s make this harder for ourselves as a department. I think we could potentially talk about this a little bit differently. We could say, okay look, let’s try to think about scale and let’s really try to expand access to our programs to the point where this goes back to your small class thing. CS is already, when you look at a lot of the departments like under resourced in terms of faculty to student ratio. But maybe we shouldn’t care about that. Because maybe for some of the students, like it’s okay, you know, because if our courses are great and if there’s all these other opportunities for them here at the university in terms of off campus stuff, you know, maybe that maybe that also works. So, so anyway, I think this is a, this is a question that the field is, the entire field is grappling with and it just, it feels, I feel very uncomfortable to be put in that position of sort of like. And I’m not really directly in that position, but I’m just sort of downstream from that choice. In terms of like who gets, who gets to receive this training and who doesn’t.

Aaryaman: How does the new idea that CS wants to be its own college tie into all of this?

Geoff: I don’t know. As far as I can tell, that’s sort of administrative thing largely. I think there’s some money involved. It’s not clear that’s going to make a big difference. I think like there’s been some ideas that we’ve been talking about. So for example, we’ve talked about, and I give credit to Margaret Fleck for this idea setting up a CS program in Las, that would basically be like a BA degree that would be lighter than our engineering degree. And that would. So if you look right now, particularly at the core, right. So if you look at, you know, and I’ll define the core is basically the required courses that CS&X students take. Most of those courses are taught by instructional faculty, teaching faculty like me. And there’s a real big difference as far as scale. When you talk to teaching faculty versus I had another term where I was using somebody yelled at me, so I’m calling them non teaching faculty. It’s not really fair either. But the faculty who are not teaching faculty, they, you know, they are like, for me, I’m like, I’ll do 4,000, like, bring it on. Like, I think that would be tremendously exciting actually. Like, I’m, I’ll need some more resources. But like, I would be very excited by that. And I think a lot of my teaching faculty colleagues feel that way, particularly if it’s connected to sort of, you know, equity goals. Like, you know, if we, I would happily do another thousand, but I would actually like those thousand students to be not just 1,000 more of the students that we’re already admitting. Like a thousand different students that, you know, could potentially really benefit from this opportunity. The nice thing about the idea of sort of a BA in computer science is that most of the additional load falls on teaching faculty because most of those students are, you imagine it’s basically a CS plus X but just with a small number of additional CS electives. So, yeah, those students are going to end up in the 400 level courses and they’re going to raise the enrollments there a little bit, but most of the additional load will be, will be shouldered by teaching that. And, and again, I mean, I’m certainly not positioned to speak for all my colleagues, but I will certainly speak to myself in saying that that would be like, I would find that to be tremendously exciting and just something that feels, you know, again, like, you know, we can sort of get away with this in Illinois because it’s like, oh, it’s a state school. Right. But like, no, no, no. I mean, we’re, you know, somebody recently in, in a public setting actually said, oh, well, Illinois is like a, you know, we’re like an Ivy League institution at a public university. And I think they were, I think they meant that in a good way. But I remember hearing it being like, I think the same thing, but I don’t like that. Like, I don’t like that aspect of our computer science department. I feel like it’s, it’s just really holding back a lot of people that, that we, we’d like to have as part of the field. So.

Juan David: Yeah, your colleague Kerry Carhelios, she, she told me a quote about from Don Bitzer, the guy from Plato, and he, he basically said that people at, you know, those fancy, I really like places, basically the, the kids from, you know, like, you know, kings and, you know, whatever. But in Illinois, you know, he said that, you know, we turn farmers into scholars. And, and into that, that, that sort of mentality that for, you know, like prestige or for whatever reason, it’s lost. And like you said, said that hurts the study and the body and the population of the students because we get a lot of kids that are frustrated because they didn’t get into X, Y and Z. It’s cool. And they get here and then they put people down or they just hurt the culture. That plus people doing computer science because, not intrinsically, because they like it, but because of job. Then you just get into this weird culture that, you know, it’s probably not net positive.

Geoff: Yeah, I, I think that’s true. And I don’t, I don’t know exactly what the end game is here. I mean, I think at some point, you know, maybe we’ll get to like, peak computer science and then, you know, AI will take all the jobs and, you know, we’ll be left with just, you know, the weirdos that really are fascinated by the stuff again, which is fine. I do worry about that dynamic that you mentioned too. I don’t really understand it here. I certainly don’t want to act like I’m speaking about it authoritatively. It’s just I’ve touched a few pieces of that and I do feel that it makes sense to me. It’s one of those things where it just sort of follows logically. Like you grew up dreaming of going to Stanford and then someone sent you to Illinois. It’s like a bad dream. It could be in the Bay Area. It was going to be nice. Instead, like, you know, there’s a wafting smell of manure from time to time. I don’t think they have that at Stanford. You know, who knows? I would suspect that no part of the Stanford campus ever smells like crap, which is fine. I’m just saying it sort of like prevents you from forgetting where you are.

But. Yeah. So I think that, you know, that is certainly a dynamic. I don’t know what to do about some of these things. I’ll say that I think that we try to create them in my course. We try to create the most positive atmosphere we can and just hope that some of this stuff sorts itself out. I mean, I do think from an educational perspective that some of the stuff that we’re doing here is really good. Students don’t necessarily always appreciate it. I get that. But the joke I tell sometimes is when MIT creates a cbtf, you’ll read about it in the Times, somebody will win a MacArthur Award, but we’ll have had it for a decade and no one noticed. So I think that some of the educational innovation that’s going on here is actually pretty astonishing and I think outstrips what is being done at some of those other more expensive, more prestigious places. But you know, but again, that’s just my view too.

Juan David: So it goes back to the selling idea that you were saying that you like, you were not great at selling. And Carrie, when she was at the MIT Media Lab, she told me that, you know, there were, there were 150 researchers and there were another floor in the building with 80 people just doing advertising and just supporting articles. And here she was telling me that we have thousands of people. And just people did that. You can count with your like the fingers of your hand doing like marketing and putting things out.

Geoff: Well. And it’s tough. I think like something like a testing center is weird too because it’s difficult to like for people to understand how much of an impact it’s really had. It’s just like that’s just a room with computers and we have those, you know. So yeah, I think stuff like that is, you know, but it’s, you know, it’s happening. Right. I have some colleagues, other places. One of them is at a very. Teaches at a top tier place with a really big introductory computer science course. And they’re starting to think about this. They’re talking to their campus about finding space. So I think that this will happen at other places and it’s just one of these things that will be, in its own quiet way, a tremendously positive legacy of, you know, even me coming here made it totally reprogrammed how I think about assessment. I mean, I just had never. And part of it is just like it is almost like new technology. It’s not really, it’s again, it’s just a room with computers in it. But in terms of like the impact on an instructor because suddenly you’re like, oh, okay, you know, I don’t have to just give like two high stakes exams I can give like 15, you know, and it’s not hard, right?

Like, you know, the first semester I was here, fall 2017, we gave a seated final exam on paper in full insurer to like 700 students. And it was terrible, right. I still have nightmares about it. Like, it was just so, so awful. I remember I had to, like, you know, because it’s finals week, so everybody’s there. And then I had to scan all of these paper exams. Well, I didn’t have to, but I did because the TAs want to leave, right? They’re going home. And I knew it would take weeks to grade, so I went. I took all the exams and went down to the basement of Siebel and just like, I had four scanners going parallel and I was there for like two hours just feeding paper into the machines. And also missed the end of a pretty good pass game. But anyway, the. Oh, man, that was just. Again, it’s like six years later and I’m still scarred by it. It was awful. So if you imagine, like, doing that, but now we’re doing that 15 times, right? And like, I don’t like, it’s going on right now and I, you know, not even noticing.

So. So I think that, like, that is just one of these things that’s just like sort of a quantum leap in terms of how things happen. It doesn’t necessarily always feel that way, but some of this stuff is, you know, if you think about how long certain courses have been taught in certain formats, like, some of this stuff is actually, like, pretty radical. And so. Yeah. But, you know, I certainly expect in 10 years, when you look around, you’ll see a lot more of this and it’ll be. It started here. I mean, I don’t want to overstate it, right. I mean, other places that had computerized assessing centers were certainly not the first. But I think the widespread use of these in normal courses, Right. Not as like, some of these were used for, like, online courses or just one strange course wanted it for some reason. But, like, the normalization of this type of assessment, I think is a pretty big deal. So something that we can be proud of in a decade when other people are doing it. So at some point, you know, I will lose the ability to make fun of Berkeley for giving paperwork exams. But no, we’re not there yet. I could still. I still have that. But, yeah.

Aaryaman: Which are some tools that you think are going to radicalize this education system. One of the things you mentioned was.

Geoff: The auto grading, right?

Aaryaman: How it freed up so much time from your life to just focus on other things just to make the course better. ChatGPT today can be said one tool which is just helping people learn at such better pace. So what are some of these other tools that you envision or you would like to exist to improve the education experience?

Geoff: I think probably we’ll spend a good chunk of the next decade figuring out what to do with LLMs and how to use them effectively, because there’s a big difference between a tool that’s designed to answer questions and the way that we would work with the student when we’re trying to help them learn. And so that. That is going to require some. Some thought. I also think that it’s going to take some time to figure out, like, what the right balance here is in terms of, like, teaching students to use the tool. Rather than teaching them to solve the problems. Computer science is strange in certain ways. Like, you know, so. So, for example, I mean, again, one of the times when I just thank my lucky stars that we actually have a testing center because I have a lot of colleagues that I think are really feeling like, forced by some of these developments into certain new strategies. Right. Where it’s like, well, I can’t stop my students from using ChatGPT, so I’ll just teach them to use ChatGPT. It’s like, well, I can stop them from using ChatGPT, and I’m not 100% convinced that I want to teach them how to use it, like, in lieu of the other things that we’re trying to teach. Because I do think that there’s a certain degree to which we are teaching students how to think logically. And if you are just cutting and pasting the thing into the prompt, you know, you’re not necessarily learning. The point is not to have to have students solve the problems. These problems are solved. They’re not particularly interesting to solve. The point is to the mental process that students go through in learning how to solve the problems.

So I’m really happy because I think that, like, we’re in a position where we don’t have to rush here. We can kind of like, keep an eye on things and see what’s happening. So I think that’ll be. I think probably that’ll be the big. The big change. Over the next decade. And it’s something that we’re starting to think about in 124. And I think that we’ll see better approaches and tools sort of come out and. And ways of just sort of like, making sure that the AI is serving as a tutor rather than just sort of telling you what the answer is. Some of the early efforts to do this, I think, are pretty clumsy. I mean, I was reading about something where it was like, they took ChatGPT and they asked the question, then if the ChatGPT included code in the answer, they removed the code. Well, I was like, well, frequently when students ask questions on our forum, I use code to make points. Right? Like, here’s how this works. So it’s like, that’s a little too. It’s not quite the right approach. But, yeah, I think we’ll get there. And I think that, like, as people learn to work with these models, we’ll have, I think, some interesting conversations about what types of things we’re trying to teach people.

One of the bellwether things that I’ll be waiting for is, you know, at what point, as a society will we would decide that rather than teaching school kids how to write essays, we’re just going to let them prompt chatgpt. Because to me, it’s funny that people are so quick to make these arguments about code where it’s like, well, no, just tell chatgpt what to do. It’s like, would you feel okay if your sixth grader was doing this? Would you be like, okay, I’ll Type it into ChatGPT, write an essay on this topic, and you can turn it in tomorrow? It feels like I think most people would be like, no, because I want them to learn how to think about it. It’s like, well, so do I.

So. So, yeah, I mean, I think those are the bigger ones, but obviously, like, my imagination is constrained by the stuff that we’re doing right now. I think. I mean, maybe it’s not even technology, but I think that there’s a lot of. I think there’s a lot of room for universities to evolve how they think about education in positive ways from things like thinking more about structure. One of the biggest constraints that I have that I can’t get rid of is I have 15 weeks, and I don’t have 18 weeks. For some students that need 18, I don’t have 12. For some students that don’t need 15, I have 15 weeks. And so a lot of what we do is really designed to try to keep everyone in the group and move everyone. But it’s like, why? I mean, if some students. If a student gets sick for a month, right now it’s like, I’ll see you in the spring. We’ll start over. That doesn’t make sense. We’ve talked a little bit about some models for doing this, but fundamentally the university system not set up that way. It’s not how we think about things. Could it be? Of course. I mean, we could, particularly with frequent testing. We could just have a model where it’s like you are here, you get to study, you take these little tests frequently and once you complete a certain amount of the little test, you’re done. If that takes you a year, fine. If it takes you four weeks, fine. That’s interesting.

I think the other thing that I would expect to see and would like to see is just universities acting more like the. I’m trying to find the right way to put this. One of the things I think that’s happened in higher education over the past couple of decades, which has been widely reported, is it’s gotten very expensive. And this is particularly true even here for out of state students, international students. I don’t think that Illinois frequently acts as if we’re inexperienced. Expensive institution. There are certain rhythms here that are just like to me, make more sense if it was 1960 and you could pay for college by working a part time job. So the start of the semester. I’m just going to go on a little rant here for a minute. It just feels like things start up here so slowly. Nothing is ready to go on the first day. Everyone’s on vacation for two weeks beforehand. People are meeting with advisors for two weeks. Then they’re trying to figure out what classes to take. And it’s like, wait, hold on. Why did we start registration in April? I would really like us to get to the point where it’s like, okay, the first day of class, everybody is where they need to be and everyone has that time to meet with their advisor and everything is up and running. All the IT stuff is done or anything else that’s going on and we can really hit the ground running. And right now we sit around for a couple weeks kind of twiddling our thumbs and. But I think that part of that is sort of connected to this idea of just like, oh, whatever, it’s not a big deal if students are paying for 15 weeks. If they get 13 weeks, that’s okay. And I don’t know, that kind of thing frustrates me.Aaryaman: It’s almost like the system is designed for administrative convenience and not the convenience of the student.

Geoff: Right? Yeah, I think in part. I think there’s also just. The problem is that there are these Load spikes that are difficult to deal with. Everybody comes back to campus at the same time, and suddenly they’re all trying to do the same things are crashy and advisors are overwhelmed and stuff like that. So that’s tough. But I just think at some point maybe we need to step back and think, okay, well, again, is there anything that we can do slightly differently? I just would love it for us to have the goal of really being able to start off with instruction on day one and really have people focused around that objective. But again, it’s like mid September, so that’s what’s on my mind. Because still, 124 does an okay job with this, I think. But it does. When you look at the students that are having a hard time with this and falling through the cracks, it is people that I worry about in terms of just our ability to support them. It’s tough to join any class a week late or two weeks late. But you don’t want that to be because somebody was confused about something or needed a particular piece of paper signed or something. All these sort of strange things that happen that put students behind is rough.

But. But, yeah, I mean, I think with technology, we’ll just continue to see, like. I think there’ll be more. I’m hoping to see more use of sort of, you know, information technologies within courses. A big unexplored area that I don’t think is, again, really a technology, I think is collaboration between institutions in development of educational materials. If you think about it, it’s very weird in a certain way. I mean, the educational sector is very odd in the sense that every university in this country is its own sort of unique product. None of them can be compared with any of the others. We don’t even have any. I mean, we try to do this. People here got all excited because U.S. news and World Report moved to step one or something like that. But those rankings are really, really, really very rough. And even when I talk to colleagues at other institutions about how they teach my class, it’s like everything’s different, right? And so I think that there are some reasons for this. Not necessarily great reasons, but one of the things that also happens is that I’ve noticed people are very, very reluctant to collaborate or share materials with each other. I think that goes back to this idea of sort of like, what is my job here as an instructor? Because if I’m using videos that were developed by somebody else, what am I doing? I probably have other things I can do.

But okay, so it’ll be interesting to see if some of that stuff changes, I’m a big fan of that story Moneyball that Michael Lewis told about the Oakland Athletics. And just that whole movement in baseball about how to better utilize resources, which is funny. I don’t know if either of you follow baseball, right, but my understanding is I don’t watch really any sports anymore. But my understanding from reading some things is that in the last season, baseball actually put some of the rule changes that baseball put into play about pace of play were actually the basically the long term result of some of this. Because the sabermetrics people found all these players that were really good at like extending at bats and the games kept getting longer and longer. So they’re like, okay, you know, we have to shut this down. So I mean like the, you know, that movement has had an effect to the degree that they’re now they’ve changed the rules of baseball, which is pretty remarkable. The rules of baseball don’t change very often. I think that one of the things that happens at the university is that because these products are so incomparable, there’s no real way for people to tell if what they’re doing is good. Because that’s kind of the root of some of those things is that there is this fundamental accountability, which is that you put a baseball team on the field, it plays another team, the two teams compete over the course of a season. If you have a good strategy, you win more games. If you have bad strategy, you win fewer games. We have no equivalent of that in education, higher education. There’s some of that going on in K12, and even that’s really unpopular because it turns out when you test students, you find out that things you don’t want to know. Anytime you give a test, half of the people are in the top, half of the people are in the bottom. Right, like guarantee. So I think I don’t know if this will ever happen in higher education because I think these universities just done a great job of building these walls between each other. But I feel like it could really accelerate sort of innovation and the adoption of best practices. We try to do more of that. I would really like to know, is 124A good class in terms of the resources that we have available, in terms of the structure that we have in place? Are the students here learning as much as the students at Berkeley? Are they learning as much as the students at Harvard right now? We have no way to know. It’s just an impossible task. Sometimes when I talk to colleagues about this, I’m like, it’s like if you had a baseball league, but every team had its own rules and refused to play with every other team, right? And it’s like, it’s a great way to feel good about yourself because, like, we’re undefeated, right? But it’s like we’ve never even played a game, right? Like, so that’s kind of where we are. And it’s weird, right? It’s weird for like, something that is such a big part of what this country is proud of, right? In terms of, like, international, internationally. Right. We’re seen as a. The leader in this area. That’s something that we have invested so much time and energy in. It’s increasingly like an important part of creating a ladder to the middle class for people. And yet we have basically no accountability. It’s like, oh, well, do you like the football team or not?

So anyway, I don’t know what form that would take. And it’s possible that this will never be something that happens, except if there’s some sort of pressure from outside. But it is also like, the thing I’ve started to see happen a little bit, though, is there is clearly a move by some places to try to create sort of educational brands maybe is the right way to put it. Like Northeastern, for example. It’s not a secret. I’ll call them out a little bit. But I mean, they are clearly. I think that institution clearly has a very different mindset. This doesn’t appeal to everybody. I have colleagues that are, you know, that are not to whom it doesn’t appeal, I’ll put it that way. But at the same time, like, they’ve got campuses, like, all over the country now. And it feels like they have a very intentional sort of sense of like, trying to expand their footprint. Which is interesting. And I kind of, like, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t feel like they’re a competitor yet. I mean, there’s still so many universities that it would be hard to feel that way. But at the same time, I mean, if they open up a location in Champaign Urbana, then we’ll see what happens. I don’t think they’re going to do that. They’re focused on major metros. But at the same time, I mean, like, I know people who teach at universities that have now, like a Northeastern outpost right in their city. And again, I don’t know exactly what the strategy is there, but it’s an interesting idea. It’s something that would be very natural in any other sector. It’s like, okay, you have A successful company, you have a successful organization, they try to expand. And some of that’s just American capitalism run amok. But some of it is this idea that this is how good ideas spread. Organizations doing well gets a chance to expand and ends up in more places and then brings those ideas with them.

So. So anyway, I mean, it wouldn’t. I don’t think. I’m not sure I’ll live to see it, but it wouldn’t surprise me, you know, if I come back in some afterlife to. For, like, higher education in this country to be sort of remarkably different and maybe sort of completely unrecognizable in terms of what we’re used to right now.

Aaryaman: I love that idea. Like, just having. I think that solves the problem that we were talking about about admissions, right? Like, people feel discouraged not getting into certain places, but if going to university, like, you can go to university and still not have any boundaries of access to content from another university. Like, that’s. That’s what you wanted at all along, right? Like, you can collaborate by still being at another institution. Just because you have the system set up where, like, it’s a free flow, free source, it’s just freeing everything. It’s like one big organism.

Geoff: It’s like different. Well, and it’s, you know, there’s, you know, one of the things. I mean, I think, like, I spent a lot of time during and after sort of like thinking about the pandemic and kind of the effect that it had on the institution and like, some of our messaging surrounding it. And, you know, there’s a lot of stuff, stigma associated with online education. I mean, I get a little bit of that in my class because it’s online. And, you know, it’s a little weird, right? Because I’m not saying that we’ve done it. I think we have a lot of room to improve in that area. And I think that’s actually something that’ll be exciting. It’s like trying to figure out how to use technology to expand access to education away from these geographic centers. But at the same time, if you think about the structure of the American university system, it’s very much in the interest of these institutions to stigmatize online education. Because that’s a huge competitor to them. I mean, we bring people from all over the country, all over the world to Champaign Urbana, which, like, no one really wants to come to otherwise, Right. We bring them here for one reason, which is that we’ve convinced them it’s important to be here to receive an education on this campus, if you can make credible arguments about online education, that argument just becomes so much harder to make. And so I think we’re probably in this period of time where institutions, I think, are aware of some of the benefits and some of the opportunities here, but I think they’re all sort of nervous, right? Because they’re also like, geez, that would really. That would open up a lot of competition, right? Like, immediately.

And universities will find other ways to create walls. Like, transferring. Is incredibly difficult, right? All these, like, mappings between different courses. And of course, that’s a problem that we created because we don’t agree on anything, right? Like, what should be taught in an introductory CS course. Well, you go to, like, 50 universities across the country, you’re going to find 50 different ideas about that. And so that creates a lot of this friction. But yeah, but I think that. But if you think about the pandemic, I mean, we basically performed the experiment right, like, unintentionally. And yet as soon as it was over, everybody was like, okay, let’s go right back to the classroom, right? It was like, we’re going to go right back to the way we were doing things before. And part of me was like, wait, hold on. We just did this experiment. Did we not learn anything about, you know, like, how students even, like, really simple things?

So for example, when I got here, I remember going down the basement of Siebel and there’s a bunch of, like, these classrooms with, like, desktop computers in there, right? I remember being like, what is this? Like, it’s 2016. I mean, like, at this point, like, everybody has a laptop, and if they don’t, we should buy one for them. Because Lanita and I remember people being like, well, this is how we do things. We teach computer labs down here. And I was like, okay, anyway, fast forward to the pandemic. Suddenly those rooms are empty for, like, two years. And I remember feeling like you still had to make the argument afterwards. Wait, guys, we can’t need these rooms because we just had two years without them. So whatever we were doing down there, we figured out how to do it in some other way. So can’t we at least now talk about maybe a different way to think about the space? Which we finally did, right? So now essentially there’s a tutoring center down there, and we basically are in the process of clearing out all the old machines, and we’re going to knock down a bunch of walls, too. So it’s going to be very cool once it’s Done. But I think it goes back to that thing I was talking about with the operating systems class. Sometimes you need a disruption like that. You need a challenge to really push people out of old ways of thinking. And it felt to me like, I think someone. There’s a famous quote. It’s like, never waste a crisis, right? And it felt like we wasted the pandemic, right? Because we had all these interesting opportunities to learn how to do things slightly differently during the pandemic. And when it was over, it was like everyone just sort of collectively decided to pretend like it never happened, rather than really having a conversation about, okay, what can we do differently? What do we learn? In what ways can we better continue to invest in certain things so that we can better support students? I think we’re all sort of recovering from this, and maybe other people think about it more than I do, but I go long periods of time now without really thinking too much about those couple of years, which is weird, right? Because it was like a pretty, you know, a pretty remarkable experience.

So. But, yeah, but I think that, like, the pushing through that stigma associated with online education would be. Would be great, right? And I think that’s also just going to require a lot of new thinking. I don’t think the ways that we’ve done this in the past have been particularly effective. But that’s not. I don’t think that’s an inherent limitation. I think that’s just us needing to do a better job.

Aaryaman: You think there’s an economical incentive tied into this as well? Just with not supporting the.

Geoff: Yeah. I mean, every university, including us, has this entire economy built up around it, right? And, yeah, I mean, that. That all, like, that all changes rapidly, right? You know, like, and, you know, the university had to deal with some of this, right. I think. I don’t know exactly what they did, but, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t. I don’t want to be too conspiratorial here, but it just. It did feel weird to me that it was like, oh, okay, well, in the spring, we’re going to pretend that we’re going to have classes in the fall. This is like 2020, right? I remember talking to my colleagues. I was like, this is going to go on for at least a year, right? Like, that was my mindset from, like, spring 2020. I remember as soon as it started, I was like, okay, I’m thinking about fall, right? I’m thinking about next year, right? Because I just. I don’t think this is going to end quickly. But the university kept telling us, like, oh, it’s going to be over, right? Like, how many people sign leases for the next year, right. And then ended up, you know, subsidizing. I’m sure many of them weren’t happy about it, right? The local. The local landlords and, you know, so, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, that would, like, in certain places. In certain places, maybe it doesn’t make a huge difference if you’re in the middle of a big city. It’s not necessarily a huge source of economic activity. But there are college towns, right? And if we don’t bring people to those places, then, you know.

You know, it’s weird though, too, because, like, we were having a. We had some conversations recently internally about how about hiring fully remote faculty, right? And I don’t know, maybe it’s just me sort of like trying to haze people by forcing them to move to Champaign. But, like, part of me was like, really? We’re gonna do that? Like, that just seems maybe a bridge too far, but why not, right? I mean, if the students don’t have to be here, why did the faculty. Have to be here? Right? I mean, so anyway, I mean, I think I’m like. One of the things that we’re doing in 124 this semester is I think I’m trying to figure out, like, maybe sort of if we assume that we can do the education part online, which I think we’ll get better at over time, like, what is the rest of this for? And I’m not sure that I actually don’t think that there won’t be a lot lost if we don’t bring students together and let them, you know, just let all that weird magic happen that happens when you get a bunch of people away from their parents for the first time and like, surround them with interesting people and give them free time and feed them and stuff like that, I think we could be doing a better job of that, right? I mean, I think that resident. And maybe over time what happens is that, you know, more of the focus, at least locally is on residential life, right? I mean, just giving people, like, a really great experience of, like, living here and having a chance to interact with people. But, like, that’s where a lot of the value is in college anyway, right? I mean, we’ve been talking a lot about education, but I think that, you know, I’m always aware of the fact that, like, a lot of what you’ve learned here is not. I had nothing to do with. Faculty. Had nothing to do with. Faculty like to. We tend to think of ourselves as being the center of the universe, but, you know, there are most of the interesting things that are happening around here happening because people are talking to each other and doing new things. Like what you guys did with this. I mean, that’s like. This isn’t a course. So anyway, but. But yeah, we’ll see. I mean, I think this stuff is. Is cool, right. It does feel like brave New Worldish in the sense of, like, there will be some disruption here. But at the same time, you know, if we really want. If the goal here is really for people to learn, then it feels like we want to use all the tools that we have to be do that. And if we can find ways for people to do that remotely for lower cost. We should. And we’ll figure it out. I mean, education and learning is such an engine of economic activity and societal health in so many ways that it feels like. It’s not necessarily the same argument that you made with disruption in other areas. Because it just feels like the thing that you’re getting out of it. Is so beneficial. That it’s worth figuring out how to do it better. So, like, you know, like, one thing.

Juan David: I was curious about is, you know, like a question that is sometimes interesting. It’s like, what do you believe that other people think it’s insane? And I think your answer might be that large class is actually better than small ones.

Geoff: That’s a good question. What do I believe that other people think this is insane? That’s probably. That’s probably up there. I mean, probably got some other things, too. Yeah. I don’t know. I think that. I don’t know if insane is the right word. I mean, or like not.

Juan David: Not like caught up to you yet or something unusual.

Geoff: That’s certainly unusual, I would argue. I think. Well, I’ll go on the faculty bashing route. I mean, I think faculty tend to overestimate their own importance by a large amount. Just in terms of the university experience. I mean, if you think about so much of the messaging you get about how to be a student, it’s like, get to know your professors. No, no, no. That’s not a good use of time. I mean, first of all, it’s very difficult. There aren’t very many of us, and most of us do other things and have friends and are busy. But, like, also, like, it’s probably much, much less valuable per minute spent than getting to know peers. I mean, like the peers of the People that you’re going to be talking to in 10 years, right. And there’s just so much more of you, and you guys are going to do cool stuff together and can, you know, go on fun adventures and things like that. So. So I think that. That that’s part of it. I mean, again, a lot of this is just, like, faculty who are in a position where, like, most people, like, we want attention. And, you know, we. We tend to, like, bend things a little bit in the direction of, like, oh, look how cool we are. That’s okay, you know, but, yeah, that’s. Yeah, I’m trying to think. I do think I have opinions that fall into this category, but not too many of them are coming to mind. We’ve talked about a bunch of it already. So.

Aaryaman: Have you ever felt challenged being in this position? Or when have you felt like it has been a test of your maybe, like, patience or skills or.

Geoff: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think, like, the summer of 2020 was rough. That was probably a low point for me, like, just in terms of work, right. Not even that, like, things were bad, but I just felt, like, totally overwhelmed, you know, just going into that fall. I think that’s probably the hardest I’ve worked in my life. Was like, that 12 months because it just felt like emergency duty, right? It felt like, again, as soon as the pandemic started, it was like. It just felt like sort of, you know, you needed to find the other gears or. That’s how I felt. That’s how I responded to it. I mean, we were supposed to go see my sister and her new baby. We still haven’t met. In Seattle that week of spring break, right? And, you know, then everything just started to collapse around us, right? And so we canceled that trip. And I spent that week basically just hacking nonstop, put together the first version of our. Our help site, our tutoring site that we still use. And. And yeah, I mean, I like, my abilities in that area were still pretty new. And so, like, that was. I had done a little bit of fooling around with some of the technologies I had used in it, but I certainly had not built anything for, like, more than two people to use. So. So that was. That was a challenge. And then there were some other things that happened over the summer. There’s this project that fell apart, I had to step into. And yeah, it just, like, that was a. That was a rough patch. Looking back on it, it feels like it was also, like, very worthwhile. But it was, you know, I don’t usually. I mean, I Will admit to not feeling a lot of self doubt often, but there were moments that summer where I was like, I just don’t know if I’m going to be able to land this thing right. It’s like I have the date circled on the calendar. I know when things have to start working, but I’m just like not 100% certain that. And you know, and to be honest about the situation, I didn’t quite land everything because we didn’t have a quiz system for like three weeks since I ended up building that to. So there was just a lot of. There were a lot of moving parts. But it was fun, right? I mean, I think I’m still using all that stuff, right. It’s like, okay, it feels in retrospect like a good investment, but it was just a lot to do sort of all at once and, and yeah, it was just weird, right? And nobody was here, you know, like, it was, you know, it was kind of an odd. It was a weird time. So. So anyway, again, like looking back, I mean, I don’t know, sometimes I. It feels very quiet these days. I’m like, oh, everything’s still working, you know, like nothing’s on fire. I don’t see any smoke. So there’s something exciting about like doing something like that and just really by the, you know, just barely getting by and having a lot of things, a lot of movie pieces coming online all at once. And it was like, in many ways just like a complete re. Envisioning of how we taught the class. And in terms of living up to what I wanted to do was like, it did that. So that was cool. But yeah, it was just a ton of. It was a ton of work.

Aaryaman: What’s usually your biggest driver for making projects or just working on projects?

Geoff: I don’t know. I think one of the things that’s dangerous in technology is once you think of something, it’s very difficult to stop yourself from doing it. Even if it is hard and ends up. It’s just, you know, I think particularly with building systems, like, you know, students in my class will frequently say, well, you know, I knew how to solve the problem and I still had a hard time getting the code to work. And it’s like, well, okay, like, welcome to the rest of your life. Like, you know, I know I can, I can imagine something as being possible and then there’s all this technical work that I have to do to realize it. And then by the time you’re done, it’s almost like you’ve lost track of what you were trying to do in the first place. So, for example, we have this neat new approach for allowing students to write tests. So teaching students how to write tests. So this is not something that we’ve done in the past, but because of sort of the approach that we take to the homework auto grader that we use, this sort of like, emerges pretty naturally. I shouldn’t say that because I’ve been working on it for a long time. It’s still not deployed. It’s one of those things where it feels like it’s about 95% done, but basically we have this way where we’re basically going to say, okay, for this problem, not only do you need to write the code, but you also need to write test suites. And we can evaluate your test suites. We can actually figure out how good they are by testing them against some, some broken examples. So, like, this is again, one of these things where just like all, it’s just this nice little cherry on top of all this other work that we’ve done on all these other systems, right? And yet it’s been very hard to get it out the door, right? Because. And I think part of it for me is actually at this point like feeling like, okay, well, now I’m going to destabilize all these other things, which it probably will. It’s going to cause some other performance issues and stuff like that. But again, once you imagine something like this, once you can conceive it, then, and particularly I think as you go along and you start to get better at things, you start to understand more of like, oh, I know that’s possible, right? Or we started to talk about adding Python as a language option to 124, right? And that’s one of these very slippery slope things where it’s like, well, I know how to do all of it, right? Like, I’m not. Technically, it’s not impossible, right? But oh my gosh, it’s gonna be a ton of work. So. So, yeah, I think that for me it’s usually just like trying to, I’m usually trying to get stuff to work that I’ve already been thinking about for a while, right? Like ideas that have been floating around. Or again, once you start messing with things, like I started to play recently with getting Python to run in a browser and it was like, oh, this works. That wasn’t that hard, right? It’s a lot harder than getting, than building some of the Java infrastructure that we had to build, right? And so then you’re like, oh, okay, well, I’m Just going to keep going. It’s like this is a fun hike that I’m on and you don’t realize it’s like 10,000 miles long. It’s just the beginning. But yeah, I mean, I think again for me it’s usually just. I usually feel like I’m spending most of my time like getting things to work that I already know will work. And just getting them to the point where we can use them.

Juan David: So you’ve been teaching this class for almost 15 semesters and something like that? At this point of your life, you know what, like what other things give you excitement in general?

Geoff: I mean, I think that like as far as the class, I. I think that I’ll stop teaching it when I get bored. And I don’t feel like I’m quite there yet. And there are some things that I feel like we can continue to do better. One of the things I actually really like, I think you were asking about other stuff, but I’ll just talk about this for a second. I mean one of the things I like about this department is that they do let people dwell in classes. There are other places where teaching faculty are basically like assigned to whatever course is open. The non teaching faculty sign up for all the courses they want to teach and then teaching faculty just get tossed into whatever’s left. And so you end up bouncing very randomly from course to course. And here I think the model that we have of sort of like there is a degree of incumbency. It’s not absolute. I mean the 124 doesn’t belong to me, me. But I’ve taught it for long enough that I think my colleagues are like, okay, well if Geoff wants to keep teaching it, then that’s probably okay. But I have started to think about like, how do I get out of here if I want to. If there’s other things I want to do. I’m actually really would be, I think really pretty excited to teach web dev at some point because it’s just something that I find tremendously cool. But other stuff, you know, I’ve. Last couple years I started to. I listen to a lot of music. Last couple years I’ve started to play Ultimate Frisbee with the community around here. I guess it’s just Ultimate Frisbee copyright. But so that’s been super fun. Keeps me in shape, you know, just reading, spending time with my dog and Susanna. I mean, I don’t have a particularly exciting life. It’s pretty quiet, which is nice actually. I Think that, like, both of us have started to, like, just simplify things as we’ve gotten older. It’s like things that now we used to watch TV from time to time. We have done that for years, and it’s just, like, really nice. Actually, I have to say, I have a really large television. I’m thinking about giving it away at some point, so maybe I’ll offer it to somebody on Reddit. Like, I don’t know what to do with it. It’s sitting there. We have a whole room that’s in there. It’s. It’s nice. Like, I think maybe I’m. I’m not an absolutist about this. I think it’s possible we’ll watch a movie again one day, but it hasn’t been on in a long time, so it’s been nice. So, yeah, I think it’s just like, you know, just trying to do a smaller number of things and just kind of enjoy them, do them. Well, we cook a lot, you know, because we kind of. We have a special diet that we. That we eat. So. But, yeah, just sort of simple stuff.Juan David: You should get away on the. You should give away the TV away on the uic. Free food.

Geoff: Oh, really? Is that a thing? Can I give away TVs?

Juan David: Anything.

Geoff: Anything free. I’m not sure it’s really, like, edible. I would advise eating it.

Aaryaman: People will play cooking videos on it.

Geoff: But you could probably sell it. Sell it and then use it to buy food. Oh, that’s true. So, yeah. Yeah.

Aaryaman: I’m curious to know the story behind your last name. How did that conversation happen? How did it come to be?

Geoff: Well, so, I mean, the backstory here, just to provide the context, is that my maiden is not the right word to use. My single name was Geoffrey Werner-Allen, which is hyphenated. My wife’s single name was Chapman. So when we got married, we thought. I mean, this is the thing. Like, I understand the youth these days, and I think there’s a lot of people who are doing this hyphenation thing for a variety of reasons, and I don’t have huge problem with that. I just think that what they don’t understand is that 20 years down the line, this causes problems. Because when you’re a hyphen and your spouse is not a hyphen, what do you do? Well, like, you know, I mean, there is a tradition in this country of, you know, one person taking the other person’s name. I don’t necessarily feel super good about that tradition. So I Certainly wasn’t going to impose it or necessarily even participate in it. When you’re a hyphen, you’re also bringing two names along, right. So it feels like a lot of names to be thrusting at the other person. And then the problem is, like, when you think about additional hyphenation options, like, you’re kind of stuck because, like, you’re not gonna like go triple barrel. That would be a mess.

And so. And so we were. We were out at dinner. I remember where we were eating. It was a Thai restaurant in Harvard Square that we used to go to a lot. And I don’t know, I just think we, like just started tossing out options. There aren’t that many permutations. And it just felt like as soon as we said challenge, it was like, oh, okay, that works. So Werner is my mother’s name that got moved to my middle name. So I still have Werner around. My original middle name was lost. And then Allen got combined with Chapman. Right. So that’s how we got to challenge, which feels. I don’t know, it just. It felt like really natural at the time. Like we didn’t put a lot of. I don’t know, my mom will probably be angry at me for saying this, but I’m not sure. We put a ton of thought into it. Like, we had to explain it to people later. And we got some pushback, I think, you know, Susanna’s family, you know, again, like, because of these traditional roles, was just sort of happy that any part of their name survived. My family was less sold on the idea, but that’s okay. They’ve wrapped their minds around it. Eventually it was like a period of multiple years where we would get cards from my parents. And it was like they sort of made this transition. First it was like, I can’t remember what we were doing at first, using too many names. And then finally it’s like, it’s okay.

But yeah, no, I mean, for us, it’s always been nice. I think it feels like. It just feels like a name at this point. I forget sometimes how it came about. But again, like, if you’re going to hyphenate, if you’re going to have, you know, your own children and you’re going to hyphenate, just be aware of the fact that you’re creating this problem for them down the line, right. It’s like a kick the can down the road sort of situation. Like, you know, it may be. It may solve an immediate problem that you created a longer term problem for Them to solve, which is fine. But you know, I don’t. As a Hyphen from the 70s, I think that like I was sort of an early, early adopter of that system. So my parents were.

Juan David: But, but you know, like that, like that way to come up with last names is a very interesting thing because it gets rid of so many issues that people may have. Like, you know, my last, like in my country, it’s like I have my father’s name and then my mom. So I have two last names. And that’s completely fine. Like in Portugal it’s like you have like the mom stims and in South India, and so you come up with a name for the kid and then you. The last name becomes your dad’s name.

Aaryaman: Dad’s name, yeah.

Juan David: Like this one. It’s like, okay, you know what? Like, forget about this or that. You just like, I just combine the two.

Geoff: You can come up with a new name. It’s funny, at the time, an example, one of my ex girlfriends from high school or an ex girlfriend from high school. And I had a ton of girlfriends, but her sister was working at like, I think it’s a stringer at Glamour magazine. And so she actually wrote up an article about this I’m pretty sure you can find using Google. But it was fine except for like there were two couples profiled in it. We were one of them and then the other one was a couple that like got married and went on a road trip in a Ford and decided to name themselves the Fords. And Susanna’s always just been like, but we didn’t name ourselves after our car. This is like a. There was a principle to it. Anyway, Joanna actually, by the way, runs like a really successful lifestyle blog now, which is kind of random. Cupofjoe.com not that I’m chilling for it. I actually had forgotten about this until we were in New York recently and I was like, oh, yeah, that’s right, she lives here. And then looked it up and still going. She has like a bunch of like a whole editorial team now. So it’s clearly a pretty successful, successful website. But anyway, has the last name ever.

Aaryaman: Helped you get into places that they might have benefited you? Like you said the fors. Like people. If you have a last name which is associated with someone that people think with high regards, they would think that you’re associated with that person. Like let’s say you decide to name yourself Zuckerberg. Like your last name.

Geoff: Zuckerberg. Right. That’s a great Idea, actually. I mean, you could do this too.

Aaryaman: You literally can. Like there’s no copyright or trademark or the last name.

Geoff: Right, that’s true. I hadn’t thought about that actually. That would be interesting. I don’t know how well it would work. You could try it, right? Like, oh, I’m a distant relative.Aaryaman: Like, your last name is Gates. Like, oh, you might be related to Bill Gates. Who knows?

Geoff: Yeah, that’s true. The only tangent, I mean, I was aware of moving up in the Alphabet, but that doesn’t have that much of an impact once you’re past grade school. The one thing I will say is that, like hyphens cause problems in many systems. It’s probably still the case, although I would hope that they fix some of these bugs. So, for example, when I would travel or when I would fly on Northwest, which is no longer around because it was a terrible airline, their self check in kiosks, I would go up and I would like, you know, I would swipe my credit card or whatever and it would never work. Like, I’m a computer scientist and I know what’s wrong with their system. And if they had let me have the source code, I probably could have fixed it for them. But of course, you know, the nice flight attendant person comes up and is like, oh, do you need help, sir? It’s like, yeah, I’m the person who can’t use the computer right in that moment. And I would always. So I learned to be more patient with them over time and not complain about the bug in their software, which I don’t think they were in any position to fix either. But yeah, that’s probably the only, the only benefit. I guess it’s a little shorter, but fewer mean nicknames with challenge. But again, it’s like a thing that I’d have to go back to middle school to enjoy. Again, the more syllables you give the other children, like, the more options there are for, you know, taunting. So I didn’t want to keep things simple.

Juan David: If you could put a billboard on Green street, what would it say?

Geoff: A billboard on Green Street? I don’t know. I think I was thinking the other day it’d be nice to have some more public art up around here. So maybe just like a, maybe just a painting or something rotating, you know, like some, some public art doesn’t need to say anything. Yeah, yeah.

Juan David: We’ve also thought about just creating some sort of art piece that would just, you know, wake people up from whatever thing they’re feeling.

Geoff: Yeah, I mean, I think like, you Know, I was, I will admit something somewhat embarrassing, which is that I’d never actually been to this building before. Before today. I was walking around out there a little bit. I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. I understand why there’s a bunch of people hanging out in here. And it’s actually nicely designed from that perspective in the sense that there’s a lot of tables and stuff. But I think good architecture can do that.

When I was, the year after I finished my PhD, Susanna was finishing her PhD. She was kind of a year behind me. And so I took a one year postdoc at MIT and I used to go down there to what’s called the Stata Center. I think maybe it’s Stata, can’t remember. And it’s this. I don’t know if you’ve seen pictures of it. It’s MIT’s computer science building. Right, Right. It’s a good one. Yeah, It’s a Frank Gehry building. And I don’t know, I mean, that building just sort of never ceased to amaze me. It’s just so strange, right? Like both inside and out. And I don’t know, like, it always just. I just always enjoyed the sight of it. It just sort of like one of those things were just so, like, just got you out of your normal rhythm a little bit. It was just like always a neat building to look at. And. And again, inside also is quite, quite amusing in a lot of ways.

It’s intentionally so, if you know the history of this building. It’s intentionally designed to be sort of have a confusing layout because it was. There was a. There’s sort of a fun history to this. There was a building on that site that was put in, in I think the 1960s. Well, no, it must have been earlier than that because it was originally used to do radar research during World War II. So I think it was maybe around that time. So anyway, it was called the RAD Lab.

Juan David: Oh, so that was there before.

Geoff: That was there before the Stata Center.

Juan David: Interesting.

Geoff: And the RAD Lab was one of these temporary buildings that ended up not being so temporary in the sense that it was erected very quickly. I guess the joke used to be like, one day they’re going to pull the panels off and you’ll see the wheels and they’ll drive it away. But it was erected very quickly. It was not like a high profile building. It was just sort of, again, intended to be a temporary structure, but was there, I think for 50 years maybe. I mean, like a really long time. And one of the things that was neat. There’s a lot of stories about the rad lab, right? But one of the things that was cool about it was that it was just sort of this building no one cared about. And so, like, the faculty there would just do random stuff. Like one person got some equipment and it wouldn’t fit into their lab, so they just knocked off the ceiling above them, right? Like, they didn’t ask permission, they didn’t get any permits. They didn’t have a team of construction people do it. They just, like, did it. And the layout was also very confusing, so people would get lost all the time. And there’s this whole mythology about this because apparently there were all these collaborations that started because somebody couldn’t find someone’s office, basically, and ended up just talking with some random person in the hallway.

So when they finally replaced that building, they wanted to preserve something of the spirit of the original building. And the difficulty navigating the building is something we decided to preserve. So, you know, I knew basically how to get to my office and to the elevator, right? It was kind of like there was like a maze of things. And from time to time, like, a very confused delivery person would stick their head in our office and be like, do you know where I would. No idea, right? I’m not even. I don’t even know if that’s on this floor, Right. Like, it’s somewhere in here somewhere.

But I said, look. But, yeah, I mean, with a big commercial building, it’s hard to really preserve that same spirit. But that was, as far as I understand, the genesis of the layout, and as far as I know that the mythology surrounding that building also inspired other structures. Like, I think at some point the Apple headquarters, maybe not the newest one, but the previous edition, had these features that were sort of designed to try to encourage people to bump into each other. So my understand. I think there’s a story about when that building was designed. Steve Jobs sort of insisted that for a while, was insisting that all the bathrooms be in one place. This is like a very large building, right? But his theory was that, like, well, this way everyone will have to come to go to the bathroom and they’ll, like, bump into each other on the way. And I think finally they talked him out of it because they’re like, nobody wants to walk 15 minutes to go to the bathroom every time. But the goal is to kind of like encourage people to have these spontaneous encounters with each other, right? Which again, goes back to some of the stuff we were talking about before Just in terms of, like, what’s the value of all this co. Location at the university? And I think for students, a lot of it is just sort of those, you know, certain sort of surprising meetings you have and interesting conversations. So there’s a lot of value to that.

Aaryaman: You don’t talk a lot about MIT because we mentioned Harvard and there are many stories at Harvard, but I just.

Geoff: Wasn’T there for very long. It was like about nine months. And it was kind of a weird. A weird gig. Like, I won’t tell the backstory, but I was basically just kind of like cooling my heels there. I liked it. Again, Cal was one of my office mates. He’s a pretty interesting guy. It gave me time to sort of get started on some things, which I really appreciated later when I got to Buffalo and I was a little bit ahead of the game, but. But yeah, it was, you know, it was just kind of a weird interstitial time, but. But I did. You know, there is something about MIT that I. I think I appreciated even for the short time that I was there. In the sense that, I don’t know, I. I think when I was younger, I was more drawn towards this, like, traditional, like, Ivy League model of what a university is supposed to look like. I think by that point in my life, I was like, MIT seems super cool. Like, you know, just like a lot of really very sharp people running around. I mean, there’s some faculty that work there who are kind of like legends, shall we say, right? Who have, you know, have or will at some point win a Turing Award and stuff like that. So, I mean, it’s. It’s a really. In some ways, it’s a really kind of impressive place to be and, and that building. Not to say anything, you know, negative about the Siebel center, right, but the Stata center is like, just, I don’t know, a pretty impressive monument to computer science as well as, again, the people that are in there, which are themselves quite, quite impressive. So anyway, I mean, I enjoyed my time there. It just wasn’t very long. Right. So. And I wasn’t there as an undergraduate, maybe. Maybe I should have gone there. I don’t know. I didn’t really consider it very seriously. But looking back, maybe it would have been fun. It probably would have been fun. But again, like, at that time, I just had this, like. I really hadn’t had this technical shift, so I just had this, like, more traditional model of what a university should look like. And MIT is like, definitely a very proudly Sort of geeky, dorky sort of.

Juan David: Place with the pranks and everything else?

Geoff: No, just like the pranks, but also just like the architecture. And, like, it’s functional, right? I mean, that was the thing with the RAD lab. It wasn’t a beautiful building, but it just did the job. And I think when you have a structure like that, it’s just like, again, no one cares about it. So it’s just like. Just knock a wall down. If I knocked a wall down in a Siebel Center, I’d probably get fired. Can’t do that, right? It’s like a form to fill out and then they have to have lot of meetings and then you have to, like, get the right people to come in, you know, try it out. I mean, they are knocking walls on the basement. So I guess on some level I have knocked sort of. I have participated and facilitated in the knocking down of some walls in the Siebel Center. But it took six years, at least six years. I mean, we’re still counting. They keep saying, you know, I was joking with the guy who’s. Who’s in our department who oversees stuff. He’s like, well, I said they’d be done by mid September, and it’s mid September and nothing has happened. So it’s like every other construction project. It’s behind schedule, but it will be. It will be exciting when it’s done because again, there’s going to be this neat, neat chunk of open space down there, which is. Which is cool.

But, yeah, no, I mean, that type of. Just that freedom. We were talking about this actually, in terms of, like, some of the historical aspects of computer science with some of my students. They’re reading this book. Some of them that want to, this is optional, are reading a book by Clive Thompson about coding and coding culture. And he talks about some of the history of how people got involved with this. And it’s remarkable to me because you had some of the earlier computer programmers were essentially gaining access to these really expensive instruments after hours. But that’s really odd, right? Because, like, we wouldn’t do that now, right? Like, so, for example, somewhere on this campus there’s an MRI machine, right? That MRI machine probably costs as much as those early computers did. But if you went there at night and were like, hey, I just want to mess around with this thing, like, I promise I won’t break anything. I just want, like, put my arm in there and turn it on. You know, they’d be like, no way. You know, there’s no. So I don’t know, I mean, it’s interesting. Like that sort of experimental ethos. Like I have no idea why they let the people do it at the time. It seems kind of nuts now. Like you just can’t go mess around with Blue Waters at night. It’s doing things right. So anyway, yeah, we were talking about that a little bit. I was like, what type of, like what type of expensive equipment like that can you just play with? Because no one’s using it at night. It’s just like the answer is nothing.

Aaryaman: So you have a lot of interesting conversations that you have. How do you come up with these thoughts about like that’s. That’s not something I would like. Yes, I would think about it, but like how does it come up?

Geoff: Reading? Yeah, just read a lot of stuff. You know, potentially if you read a lot of stuff, you can impress people over time. Read interesting things. I mean, like read Tom Clancy. Yeah, exactly. A lot of Tom Clancy books. I don’t. It’s funny, like, I don’t. I. It’s one of those things where like I’m sure that all that had some sort of effect on me psychologically, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’ll go see somebody at some point and we can work through it together. Maybe I would have to go back and reread the books though, in which case, no way. I’m just not wasting any more time. I. Those. But some of them were okay. Like some of them are better than others, but man, I don’t know.Juan David: So do you have any other regrets in life besides reading the Tom Clancy?

Geoff: I have a ton of regrets in life. I mean, yeah, sure. I don’t know if they’re regrets. I mean, I wouldn’t say it that way. I mean, I think that like I’m very happy with like where I am now. And the opportunities I have and the various things, directions in my life it’s taken. I mean, I guess one thing I will say I regret is I wish I had certain things I started doing sooner. Like, you know, I’m a 40 year old man now and like I wish I had started playing Frisbee when I was in my 30s or maybe in my 20s actually. You know, because I would like I had some good years there when I was, you know, not prone to getting hurt all the time. Probably had a little more pep in my step. But. But yeah, I don’t know. I mean there’s. I think it’s probably a little too early for regrets at this Point. I have a lot of life left, so time to make new mistakes.

Juan David: You know, you’ve said that you really care about what people think because that’s not how you see the world. But grief wasn’t what’s anymore. That was something that impacted you emotionally. So what do you think people will say at your funeral?

Geoff: Jeez, if anyone will be there. That’s a question. I just want to. One thing I want to say about not caring about what people think, I think I have a hard time understanding what people think, Right. And I think that’s impacted my ability to care about what people think. I’m not sure that that’s a good thing. I mean, certainly you can have the opposite problem where you’re too worried about what people think. But I think the ability to conceive and to sort of reverse engineer things in terms of being able to understand how people are thinking about things is super important. And something that I’ve had a lot of trouble with, right. And. And probably has led me into some not great situations. So I don’t know. It’s a good question. I mean, I don’t. I don’t know what. What people would say. I guess, like, maybe my flippant answer is, like, at that point, I don’t have to care anymore. I don’t know. I think at this point, maybe I’ll just say I’m still working on that I still have time left.

I think that there’s things that I’m still interested in doing in certain ways. I think you get to a certain point and you start to realize, okay, well, now I have the opportunity. Opportunity to potentially have, like, impact in different ways. And maybe that’s, you know, maybe there are things I. I care about a little bit that I’d like to try to figure out how to advance a little bit more. So. Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, that’s a good question. I was thinking about that the other day because I. I do think, like, as someone who is introverted and like, fairly independent, I think that’s one of these sort of emotional gotchas where it’s like, oh, will anyone come to your funeral? And it’s a weird thing to worry about, right? I mean, I don’t know. I mean, first of all, there’s an obvious reason why it’s a strange thing to worry about, right? But then there’s these other reasons, which is like, is that really, like, is my goal in life to have a lot of people at my funeral, like I don’t think so. Like, if it is, I’m not doing a very good job of pursuing that goal. But I think, like, it’s not clear that that’s a goal that I want to have. I’ve been to funerals where there were a lot of people. I’ve also been to funerals where there were only a couple of people, but I’m not sure that, like, that is lined up in ways that are meaningful to me with, like how people are or how they lived or what their life meant to them.

There’s a. One of the pieces that I’ve returned to multiple times in my life is an essay about grief and about losing things. And oh man, I’m gonna. By Catherine Schultz in the New Yorker. It’s a beautiful, beautiful piece and I would encourage you to both to find it at some point, particularly when you find yourself lost or having lost something or someone. The piece what’s really devastating, I’m going to ruin it sort of for you right here. Sorry. But what’s really beautifully devastating about the piece is that she starts from this very sort of thousand foot, very clinical discussion of losing things, like physical things. Like she talks about time she lost her car keys and she lost this. And then at some point she transitions into discussing losing her father. And the idea of death and loss. But it’s just. It’s a really beautiful. By just a tremendous writer, I mean Katherine Scholz and some other things that are just gorgeous. But this is, I think, one of her finest things that I’ve read. But she talks in the piece, though, about when reflecting on her father’s death, thinking about everything that she’s lost, but also sort of coming to this realization that the most meaningful, the most impactful thing that has been lost was never available to her in the first place because it was her father’s perspective, it was his life viewed from the inside out, I think is how she put it. Which is again, as much as we can try to use our imagination to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes is never something that’s available to us.

And so anyway, I always like that idea. I’ve been reading Lincoln and the Bardo, this book by George Saunders. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. It’s a fantastic book. It’s talking about essentially sort of spirits, like ghosts. It’s really a fascinating book. It’s based on, I think, some historical events where Abraham Lincoln’s son, young son, died while he was in office. I think right as the Civil War was getting started. And I guess there were some reports of him visiting the cemetery where his son was interred many times. And so the book is told from the perspective of these spirits that are inhabiting this cemetery. And even that, I think, for me, just going back to the idea of grief, it’s, like, really fascinating because it’s expanding my sort of idea of. I mean, it’s fiction, right? But, you know, just the idea that, like, there are these. That there’s that perspective on things, too, right. Where these spirits sort of watching and sort of interacting in certain ways with. With the living is really fascinating to me. Like, when my father died, I never thought of that. I was just like, oh, he’s gone. You know, I mean, I was upset about it, but I didn’t think, like, oh, gosh, I wonder if he’s, like, lingering in between, you know, in between places because he has unfinished business or something like this. It was kind of. Kind of wild. So. So anyway, yeah, I mean, I think that’s the. But go find that. That article. That’s a neat piece. It’s worth reading in general. I mean, I think it’s a beautiful essay, but it will. It will. It will land more when you’re in a position where you’re experiencing grief. So.

Aaryaman: If there was one thing that you could tell your younger self, starting maybe high school, what would it be?

Geoff: Hmm. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s a good question. These are good questions. I feel like. I don’t know. I mean, I think when I was in high school, I probably didn’t need this advice, but I think that there’s, like. I’m starting to feel as if my wife is like, circle back a little bit to. In a way that sort of reminded me a little bit more of when I was younger. I feel like. And I don’t know, this feels a. Little bit. Indulgent sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I’m acting like a kid, right? It’s like, you know, in the sense of I get to work on the things I like to do, right. I get to run around from time to time and play with a piece of plastic, which is fun. I get to read books a lot, which I liked when I was a kid, Right. And then did all these other weird things.

So I don’t know. I mean, part of me wonders if, like, there is some degree to which, like, we know ourselves well as children, right? Like, in certain ways, not. Not always we’re influenced by the people around us, but there’s A. There’s a freedom to being a child, I think, in certain ways. And then I think as you grow up, you start to feel like, okay, I’ve got to do these things, I’ve got to behave this way, whatever. And then like, you maybe at some point in life just start to sort of arrive back at some of those earlier places and just be like, you know, I mean, look, I don’t want to harp on the whole TV thing. Like, I’ve got nothing against television. There’s some good things on tv. But I just feel like for me personally, right. I think it’s just finally dawned on me, like, I much rather spend an hour reading a book than, like watching, you know, the late night shows, right. It just like. And again, nothing that’s a late night show is totally cool for some people. That’s their thing they want to do. But it feels like for me, just from an authentic perspective, it’s like, okay, you know, like there are these things that you start to do because you see other people doing. And there’s some like, kind of sense of like just allowing yourself to be yourself and feeling like maybe a protectiveness towards that. A sense of like, oh, okay, like this is the way you are is probably okay. That doesn’t mean that it’s not fun to experiment with new things, Right. But there’s a degree to which sort of like honoring yourself and like feeling a little bit protective of your own identity and some of like just the experience of being a child and sort of like the magic and like the wonder that you can feel about things, which feels sometimes like it’s very much lost. At least for periods of time as an adult. But, you know, you find ways to sort of bring yourself back into these things. But it does feel like sometimes there’s a sense of like, possibility or busyness that you get caught up in and then that wears off and then you sort of find yourself again.

Aaryaman: You mentioned earlier that you were background student, Right. One of the things that I find interesting is that you chose academics. Like, you pursued that path of just being in the classroom. How did you make that decision?

Geoff: I don’t know. I have to say, I think there’s a part of me that feels like I arrived in this very backwards way at being a teacher and had to find a way for me to do it that felt like it was a good fit for me. I had very good role models in terms of education as a child. I had a fantastic kindergarten and second grade teacher. I actually grew up in Winnetka, outside of Chicago, or we lived there for seven years and then we moved to Detroit. So I was born in Illinois. So I had a fantastic teacher, Mrs. Petrushka. She was. And actually, in certain ways, again, not to go too psychologically deep on some of these things, but I feel like some of what I try to do for students now is. May be connected to kindergarten, right. Because Mrs. Petrushka, I mean, she was a great teacher, but one of the things that she did is that she believed in. Well, I don’t know. I mean, I was kindergarten. We never had, like, discussions about pedagogical theories. Right. But, like, she clearly, based on what she did, believed in this idea of creating an environment for students. So our kindergarten theme was the Enchanted Forest. And, like, the whole room was just decked out and all of this, like, decoration around this forest theme. And she had all these ways that she would integrate this throughout the. Throughout the year. And I, as a child and a sort of introverted, quiet child, I remember just being really moved by this. And I think very sort of inspired in certain ways. Right. And it wasn’t like the things she was saying. It wasn’t that she was, like, demanding that we pay a lot of attention to her. I’m sure she did, because she’s a teacher and she needs to, like, you know, manage the classroom. But I just remember, like, the care and energy she put into creating this environment for students. And then in second grade, it was the Explorers Club, right. Which was even cooler, right. Because it was like balloons in space and, you know, stuff like that. And I’m not in second grade anymore, so I don’t know if people do this type of stuff, but I feel like she was a pretty unusual teacher.

So I think that, like, my parents were very strong believers in education. Like, they were very. You know, that was something that really mattered a lot to them. So. Yeah, I don’t know. But it is interesting, right. I think that maybe during my time here, I feel like I’ve started to think more about. So to maybe see myself as an educator more. You know, because I think, like, some of the. Look, I mean, some of the stuff that we do in 124 is like, putting technology in. To work in the world to support education. But I think some of it’s just design, right. Like, there are things we do, like frequent assessment, for example. Like this. You can do frequent assessment on paper if you want to. Like Margaret Fleck, you know, one of my paper colleagues. I mean, she was doing Frequent assessment. Way before it was cool. She was doing it on paper. They still do it. 173. I mean, exam lets, right? Like, that’s the let part. So that is not a new idea. You can use technology to facilitate this stuff, like, making it easier, like we were talking about. And then you get to these places. But, yeah, I don’t know. Like, it’s. These are all such good questions.

Juan David: You know, in many ways, you’re very unique in academia because of how you see the world, in sense, in the terms of how, like, you go against authority in many ways. And you’ve done that at many times of your life, which is a good thing at times, but also not so great at the others. And you said, like, that creates friction. You know, it created friction with your colleagues in the institutions. But I’m curious because I’m also sometimes similar in that regard. So, like, in what ways did that hurt? Or do you, you know, is there, like, context that you can use to avoid doing that? Because, you know, I guess the question is, like, in what ways did it hurt you that you wish it didn’t?

Geoff: I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure that, like, it’s hard to. I think I find it hard pressed. To. Suggest that people, like, censor themselves. Or hold themselves back. I mean, one of the things that I’ve noticed is that, and Suzanne has pointed this out to me, is that I think frequently, and I’ve noticed this here. And honestly, when I got here, and I’m sure if any of my colleagues watch this, they’ll probably laugh about what I’m about to say. But I really did try to hold back a little bit because I was like, oh, gosh, I just had this bad experience. I didn’t get tenure because I made all these people angry. I’m going to be nice. I was, like, really trying to be nice. So that was me trying to be nice or politic. I don’t want to say nice, right? Because, look, I mean, to me, it’s nice when people work together towards a common goal, right? Like, one of the things about me that I am aware of and I don’t know what to do with is that, like, you know, I had a very. Let’s put it this way, I had a very argumentative childhood, right? So I am very comfortable in conflict. Not that I enjoy it, right. But just that, like. And actually, I think sometimes people probably misunderstand me in the sense that they think that I actually like being in conflict with people, which I don’t. Actually, like, I feel that kind of that tension there and I don’t enjoy it, but, like, I have a certain tolerance for it. I think that’s unusual. And that’s just a childhood thing.

I think what, what, what you find is that over time, when you are genuine and when you really care about things and, and that has to be. You have to be true to that. Right. In the sense of when you’re wrong, you have to accept that you have to support other people when you’re aligned with them. But when you behave in this way that is, you know, consistent with the goal that you share with others, that eventually those people will start to value you more and feel less in conflict. And because, because there’s, I mean, you know, again, like, to me, part of the reason to engage in. And sometimes I do take contrarian positions, I think, sometimes, like to a fault. But I think sometimes when you take two ideas and really sort of like bash them together for a while, you end up with something better. You end up with the sense of. Because it’s very rare that, like, one is right and the other is wrong. And usually there’s some bits of that you want to use of both. So you take them and you just sort of like, you know, let them, you know, rub against each other a little bit. And out of that can frequently come something good. But I think what helps other people and what helps me also in these interactions, feel safe. Safe is when I know that fundamentally I’m aligned with the person. We care about the same things. I definitely have colleagues here where I feel that 100%, and I am not always in agreement with them, but I know that we are trying to do the same thing. We both have the same fundamental goal. And so the disagreements are not us pushing against each other, it’s us sort of like pushing together to try to get to one place.

And I think when you engage with people and you have that foundation, then it actually opens up a lot of exciting possibilities. It doesn’t mean that you want to fight with people, because that’s not fun. But it does allow you to disagree with people in ways that I think can be perfect, productive. But that just takes time because it’s about trust. And I think over time when people, because sometimes people come in and they just think, okay, well, you’re just being loud or you’re just being disruptive, or you just, you know, you’re new here and you don’t understand how things work or Whatever. And there’s a lot of ways that they might be suspicious, right at first, but I think over time when you develop trust with people, then they realize, okay, like we are aligned fundamentally, right? We don’t always agree that’s not the same thing. But you know, we share this goal, right? And so now we’re actually, we can work together in this. Because again, if you think about how a great team works, like if you get in the huddle in an NFL game or you know, I’m thinking about sports teams, but any type of team, like, you know, like a great string quartet, right? Like a fantastic group of lawyers or whatever, like there is, there is conflict, right? There is disagreement, there is bickering. There is. And, and that like understanding how to process that stuff is super important, right. For, for everybody. Because like, you know, it’s important for the group to make good decisions and to come to good agreements about things that people feel comfortable with. But at the same time, like, I think on some level that the tolerance, the more of that disagreement and the more divergent perspectives and ideas that you can bring into those situations, the better, right? That doesn’t mean that everyone’s always going to get their way. That’s never going to happen, right? But the more voices you hear, the more ideas like people are encouraged to bring forward, right? The better, right? But again, like in all those contexts you have this foundation of people that are, that are fundamentally working together, right? Like everybody on the team wants, you know, to perform well and wants to play competitively. Like everybody in the string quartet, like wants to sound wonderful and like be able to perform together. Like there’s this very clear sort of common aim and purpose, right? And I think establishing that with people, people is, is what allows you to be genuine in those and also allows other people to do the same thing too, right? So that’s, I think, I mean, to the degree have any advice about that? I think that’s what it would be. But sometimes it just takes time, right? So you just have to be patient with people.

Aaryaman: How have you dealt with self doubt when maybe you’re in an argument with someone or in that phase after you left Buffalo and you’re in that state where like, am I making the right choice? Like, is this the right thing to do?

Geoff: I don’t know. I mean, I will admit, you know, that I am not prone to self doubt. It is probably not a good quality in general, right? But I don’t, I think I typically just try to find something else to do, right? So, you know, even not getting tenure, right. I mean, I just didn’t have a lot of time to brood over it, right? It was like, okay, it happened. And then, okay, now I’m writing applications and putting together a portfolio, and then next spring I’m interviewing. And so it was just, I don’t know, it’s like sort of keep your feet moving, right? Which was. Which is fine, right? I think as I’ve started to do things I care about more, I do feel that way sometimes. Like, I do. And it is like, some. I’m certainly not like, immune to, like, that type of fear, right? In the sense of, like, is this really working?

I mean, and that’s the thing that I think one of the ways to do it is, or to. To. To help with those feelings is to try to find evidence, right? Like, try to convince yourself. Like, try to perform the experiment. Like, try to, you know, I can’t believe I’m about to do this. There are these, like, posters that they hunt all over the Siebel center, which I think most of our. Most of them are like, I guess they’re better than what was there because what was there was like multiple years old. But there’s one on my floor that says something about fearless, fearless measurement. And I don’t know who wrote that, but that sort of has resonated with. Me a little bit, right? Because, I mean, like, the willingness to test things, but also to accept the results, right? In a sense of like, okay, I’m going to try this thing. If it doesn’t work, we’re just going to walk away from it, right? And I think sometimes the. The unwillingness to do that is dangerous, right? Like, and. And as someone who has written a lot, as someone, particularly someone who creates software, like, that’s also a danger that goes along with software creation, is that I built this thing, therefore we must continue to use it, right? And you just have to let stuff. At some point, you have to let stuff go, right? But I also think that comes from, like, feeling in a good place in your ability to generate new things, right? In the sense of like. Again, if you go back to thinking about artists, like, productive artists are not so worried about that painting from a month ago. They might not even think about it anymore because they’re, like, doing something else, right? So I think that. So, yeah, I think that’s one way to do it, which is just, you know, sometimes the doubt comes from. Or the fear comes from just like, oh, I won’t be able to do something like that again. But if you Keep your feet moving and keep doing new things. Then eventually, over time, you’re able to, you know, have a sense of, like, okay, like, I can. There’s still other things that I’m capable of. Like, I can adapt to the situation. I can learn this new thing. Like, I can, I can do something new. So. But again, like, self doubt is not something that I’m good at, but I should probably try to get better at it.

Juan David: But at the end, that’s not who you are.

Geoff: And.

Juan David: And at one point, you just sort of have to, you know, like, this.

Geoff: Is who I am and yes and no. Right. I mean, you know, like my dad said, overcome your genetic inheritance. So, like, just because you are a certain way doesn’t mean you have to stay that way. Like, you can certainly think, okay, is this serving me or not? I think there have been times when it has served me right. Like, you know, that summer of 2020 we were talking about, like, I had room for some of that, but not much. And I think, like, had I been a slightly different person, I might have really had a much more difficult time with what I was doing because it was just fundamentally very risky, sort of. But, you know, so, you know, you can, you can find these things, you can find ways to harness them, and then you can also think, what am I not as good at? How is this holding me back? Like, this inability to reflect on this, this type of thing, in what ways can I harness it? But in other words, at least being aware of the ways in which it’s a limitation. And I think that, like, I’m aware of the ways in which it’s a limitation. I think it, most of the time, I feel like it’s a, It’s a fair trade at this point, but that’s not always true.Aaryaman: With experiments and more experiences, we get better.

Geoff: Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s like, it’s just this. This question of, like, being willing to, you know, be willing to be wrong. For example, I mean, if you run another Kathryn Schultz recommendation, that’s another great book that she wrote called Being Wrong. Being Wrong. Yeah, she wrote a whole book about being wrong. It’s fascinating, actually. So early in the book, she talks about this idea that, like, no one is actually wrong ever. It’s a weird state that we talk about because as soon as you identify yourself as being wrong, you have made a transition to a new state. So it’s like impossible to be in the state of being wrong. Because as soon as you recognize it, you are in this a different state, which I thought was fascinating. So anyway, there’s a whole book about. About this and it explores a lot of ideas peripheral to what we’ve been talking about for the past few minutes. And it’s really interesting, actually, and talks about. I mean, there’s all these fascinating stories in this space. You know, these people that, you know, like, sent someone to prison, for example, based on an eyewitness testimony that they were absolutely sure of, and it turned out the person was not guilty. So, you know, imagine. I mean, that’s a very, very hard way to be wrong. But. But there’s all these. There’s all these smaller ways that we’re wrong all the time and the way that we think about it and the way that we work with wrongness. I think is really interesting. So. But yeah, I mean, you perform experiments and you kind of allow yourself to be in a position where you’re going to find out something new that’s fun.

Aaryaman: Do you believe in working fast and breaking things or are you more a fake, deliberate pacer?

Geoff: I try not to break things. I mean, I think breaking things would probably have been more exciting in my 20s and 30s. Now I’m like, okay. Although, I don’t know. I mean, I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t hide my true nature. Like, sometimes even now, I’m just like, whatever, I’m just gonna go for it and we’ll see what happens. I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t know if I should be omitting these things. It’s like the other night I was just like, oh, I have these little couple pieces of development I want to do. Actually, this is all motivated by something even dumber, which is I need to reduce the size of. I need to do some database backups or move some of these database contents off site. Some of them are really old. They don’t have a timestamp. Okay, well, I’m going to put in a bunch of changes to this system and I’ll just roll them out tonight because why not? And then students will find the same over than over the evening, which they did. Most of them, actually. It’s nice in a course like 124 because students are using this stuff pretty much all the time. So if I push out a change, I usually find out if it’s broken within a few minutes. This particular night, I actually didn’t find out until the morning. And I had a student who was trying to do one of the lessons at A. And M. It was like, I think this is a little borked. And I was like, yep, it is. So. But yeah, I try not like, my goal is not to break things. There are times at the same time, though, when you’re doing some of the work like this, sometimes there are places where you really actually do have to move fast, right. And I just try to focus when I need to do that, right? Because sometimes there’s a bunch of changes you need to make kind of all at once, or there’s a certain thing that needs to have by a certain date. And so, yeah, I don’t know, there’s probably good analogies to things like hiking or whatever, where it’s like certain parts of the trail you just kind of have to focus and go through as quickly as you can to do them safely. And other parts you can slow down and hang out.

But yeah, I mean, I think that mentality. Again, there’s a story from this Coders book about the early days of Netscape. And you guys may have heard this story, I may have told this before or shared it in some other way. So they had this, apparently in the Netscape development office, they had the stuffed lemon. And the idea was if you were responsible for code that broke Netscape, they would put the lemon over your desk. And in Coders, Clive Thompson interviews someone who worked in Netscape. And he said, you know, there’s an interesting dynamic with this, right? Because he said, you know, you didn’t want to always have the lemon because that was a sign, you know, you were bad, bad programmer, but you didn’t want to never have the lemon because that was a sign that you weren’t sort of like, aggressive enough, right? You weren’t like, trying things, you know, so he was like, it was like this right balance to find between, you know, sort of creativity and caution, which I think is, particularly when you’re building things that people are using, is always one of these things. That’s fun, right?

You know, it’s. I was talking with a colleague today and I was saying, like, at this point, I mean, we run 124 a good chunk of the year, but when the plane is on the ground, shall we say, like, I, I, I have a, I feel it, right? I feel different, right? Like, when the course isn’t on, like, I don’t always feel it during the semester, but then like, when the semester ends and there’s like, you know, a month where nobody needs to use it and doesn’t have to work, I do feel like an odd sort of A distinct sense of calm. So. So anyway, yeah, I mean, I, like I said, I try not to break things, but it happens. None of it’s the end of the world either. Like, you know, students. I mean, to be honest, I think I’m actually the beneficiary of the fact that so much stuff online is broken so much of the time that, like, I think you guys are all used to it now, so nobody cares, right? You know, glitching, like, that’s actually kind of a nice term I have to say. Like, people use that sometimes. Oh, is the website glitching? I’m like, I don’t know, maybe, but it feels like kind, you know, it’s like it’s not broken, it’s just glitching. Something’s wrong with. The website’s in a bad mood right now. But yeah, I mean, I joke with my staff sometimes. I’m just like, all I’m trying to do is have a better uptime than Reddit, but I think I might be able to accomplish that. Because it seems to go down all the time or like some of the systems that we use at the university.

Aaryaman: What’s the philosophy with open sourcing it or open sourcing your work, your website, your.

Geoff: I have, you know, I have no problem with open sourcing stuff. I will say that like, the. There are the website. So. Okay, well, the website is still in a private repo. One of the reasons for that is that that Monorepo also includes all the content for the quizzes, so at minimum I’d have to refactor things. There’s also a ton of secrets buried in there and stuff like that. Most of those are in things that aren’t checked in. But the code for LearnCS Online should probably be public, and I think I’m just waiting on figuring out how to clean it up a little bit and again, how to make sure that I haven’t checked in a file that has secrets in it or. And just the overall embarrassment that I’m going to feel when people start to look around like, oh my gosh, poke at the code. It’s a mess. Yeah, I mean, it was all implemented in like three months in a rush. So, yeah, I mean, most of the stuff I work on is out there in the public domain and I don’t at this point, because of the amount of software that I’m supporting for the course, I am not to do things like write good documentation and stuff like that. A couple of the tools that we do use, I will say are actually quite well tested. Which is neat. We have a huge test suite for one of our core libraries that has about 800 tests in it. So every time I run that, it gives me a big sense of satisfaction. But it’s a project that’s been in development, you know, for four years now. But yeah, I mean, I try to follow best practices in software development when I can. The one big thing that I’m missing most of the time is documentation. So I do try sometimes, but I’m not. It’s, you know, some of it’s for me or just for a small number of other people. So it’s not a but. But, yeah, no, I have. I enjoy putting stuff out there.

I mean, I do think that, again, it goes back to this question of will we get to a point where people are more freely using other people’s tools and materials? I like that idea. It turns out that that’s actually remarkably hard to do, though, even from a tactical perspective, for reasons that I’m not super excited about, but at the same time exist. So, I mean, even so, for example, even just authentication, like, first thing you’re going to try to do if you’re going to try to get your tool to work on your site is you’re going to have to figure out at some other university how do you authenticate users? It’s not really great solutions to this that are common across universities. So it’s very hard for me to ship code that has a particular strategy in it that’s actually going to work. Like, you see this if you go to prayerlearn.com for example, right? Like, you can see every institution that they support because there’s this growing number of, like, you know, institutional logins, because every university has their own way of doing this. It’s not quite entirely true. Illinois has support for some common login flows that I’ve been using on my sites to reduce the amount of nonsense I have to deal with. But yeah, but I mean, even that, because pretty much almost, I shouldn’t say everything, but like a lot of things you’re going to want to do and have to interact with authentication in some way. And so not having a standardized way of doing that is a huge, huge problem. So.

Aaryaman: But you mentioned a couple of books during the conversation. Which books helped you gain an interesting perspective on life? And which ones would you recommend?

Geoff: I mean, just. Yeah, I think I’m just going to. It’s just this is going to be recency bias twice, which is fine. I think so. I mean, I’ve mentioned a few stories from coders. I learned a lot from that book. I think that, like, as a software creator, I recognize myself in a lot of the stories and a lot of the things that are discussed in there. And I was like, oh, gosh, okay, that’s why I’m that way, like. Or he talks about the experience of constantly dealing with failure of software creators, reflecting on the fact that they’re going to spend their whole career fixing bugs in their own code, which is basically true. You get to write some new stuff from time to time, but then increase. And also, I feel as the amount of code that you’re maintaining grows, you spend more time updating and tending to the stuff you’ve already created. And less time being able to actually do new things. So that book. I’ve really enjoyed reading a couple books by Richard Powers, who actually has a connection to this area. I think he was a faculty member here and maybe even an alumni. And he has written a bunch of books. One of the ones I read recently was called the. The Overstory. And on some level, it’s a book about trees. It’s a novel, so it’s kind of a neat novel. But I think it’s one of those books that just like, sort of fundamentally altered my perspective on the world in the sense, like, when I walk around now, I’m just so much. I look at what’s outside differently. And I read another book by his recently, Bewilderment, which was also good.

I’m trying to think. I mean, like, I think books that sort of come to mind as sort of popping out over the years. I don’t regularly return to stuff very often anymore. You know, I spent too many years rereading those Tom Clancy books, and now I just try to. I just try to move on. You know, Some of Dave Eggers work I’ve always liked. He’s another University of Illinois alum. We actually have quite an interesting collection of writers that came out of this area. Dave Eggers is, I’m sure, a University of Illinois alum. Dave Foster Wallace grew up around here and had a connection to the area, Richard Powers. So, yeah, I’m also very aware of the fact that all these authors are white men. Maybe they speak to me more because I’m like them. But, yeah, I’ve been reading, so I’ve been trying to expand my perspective a little bit more recently with reading some different things. Although not necessarily saying I’m great at it. A lot of Salman Rushdie’s books enjoyed. Like, he’s a fantastic Just with words, you know, like, it just feels like his word play is really incredible. I read his latest book. I have to say I didn’t like it as I didn’t like it as much as I remember liking some of his earlier books like Midnight’s Children and the Satanic Verses and the Ground Beneath your Feet. It’s a fantastic novel. It’s a really beautiful book. Murakami Kafka, on the Shore, like, a bunch of his sort of books and short stories and things like that have been, I found really, really sort of beautiful. Strange. Like, very. Like, it just has this incredible imagination. Yeah. Those are some people that come, you know, some authors that come to mind.

But I think the books have really changed my perspective on things. I think I’m starting. Maybe I’m finding those more recently. I think in the past, I do. You know, one of the things I will say, I think that maybe, you know, would be useful for some of your listeners to hear is just the sense of, like. I think college actually damaged reading for me. In the sense of, like, reading was fun at some point. Like, it was enjoyable. And then you got to college, you do all this reading. A lot of it was awful. Like, just, like, really, you know, I remember trying to sit down in the evening and do the reading for my classes and just, like, having a hard time keeping my eyes open, you know? And so I think sort of after recovering from some of that, it now feels like, oh, okay, now, like, 20 years later, I’m able to enjoy books again. As just literature. And not feel like every one of them has to be edifying or anything like that. So that’s definitely something that’s been nice. But I feel like I kind of wish that college didn’t have that effect. I didn’t take this class, but during the time that I was in graduate school a couple of times, I would sit in sometimes for a month or two on a course on American and British fiction taught by James Wood, who’s a literary critic. He writes book reviews for the New Yorker. And, um, I don’t remember what his position is at Harvard. I think there’s some stupid, snobby Harvard thing about, like, him not being able to have a faculty position because he doesn’t have a PhD or something. So he’s like a lecturer or something. But whatever. His class was fascinating. And I have to say, like, when I think back sometimes on my college experience, there were, like, a couple of people who were actually really fantastic lecturers, and James Wood was one of those people. I mean, it was one of those classes where, like, when he would ask a question, you would get a little disappointed because you’re like, oh, and I have to listen to someone else talk for a few minutes, right? I would just. You should just keep talking, right? Don’t ask anything. Don’t ask any questions, right? Just talk.

But one of the things I really appreciate about him is that he just. I mean, first of all, the reading list for his class was quite short, right? Where he was actually really encouraging you to do the reading and, like, finish these books. And it also had. Gave it a sense that he had put a lot of thought into it. It’s like, I really want to teach this book for very good set of reasons, rather than just having a big reading list where people are kind of exposing the fact that they can’t make decisions. But his sort of critical approach, and I think this is something he’s known for, is just also very sort of textual and very direct in the sense that he’s not. He’s not willing to ignore the obvious meaning in the text in the search of something deeper. And I remember him, one of the books that he would assign many semesters was Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. And he was asking. He kind of read a short passage and he was asking people, like, why does this work? Like, what’s so good about this passage? And I remember this, I’m sure, well, meaning probably an English or literature major raised their hand and, like, gave this five minute, like, a little mini essay on, like, how this connected to other literary criticism stuff. And I don’t know, I got very confused very quickly. And he was like, no, I don’t think so. He’s like, it’s because it’s funny. That was his explanation. Okay, it’s shorter, right? That’s already better. So, yeah, so I think that, like, you know, but. But yeah, I feel. I feel fortunate that, like, my interest in reading, I think, has sort of, like, recovered from that experience. But I would. But I would encourage people who are in college, like, or being forced to read a lot of things to, like, you know, once you leave, you know, probably take five years and just read for fun, right? Just, like, read cool stuff, like, don’t read a textbook, don’t even read nonfiction. Just, you know, read poetry, read fiction. Like, you know, just enjoy that ability that we have to, like, create these. These beautiful worlds and. And allow ourselves to expand perspectives and see things from other people’s point of view. It’s pretty cool. So trying to think, you know, the book question is an interesting one. Trying to think of their other again, I, I don’t know. I would recommend some David Foster Wallace stuff, but I just feel like this is like the white male canon at this point, so. And some of his essays are quite good. Like, his books, I think, can be a little bit difficult to figure out. But as a cultural critic, like, he is really interesting and he wrote some very funny things. So if you haven’t read some of them, actually he has a whole.

Juan David: Long.

Geoff: Essay he wrote, I think, for Harper’s about the Illinois State Fair, which is definitely worth a read. It’s very, very humorous. So.

Aaryaman: What advice would you have for students who are just curious, who want to do meaningful things with their passions and just continue working on interesting things?

Geoff: I mean, I think you said it. I mean, I think continue working on interesting things. I mean, feel like there’s, I don’t know, I mean, there’s just. I mean, first of all, like, there are a variety of ways in which I think we sort of need to guide and, and sometimes like fence off yourself. But at the same time, I think there’s a huge amount of space in life for that type of thing. And I think particularly when you’re young and you know, like, you’re not quite sure about certain things, like, it’s worth exploring, it’s worth trying new things and it’s, it’s worth allowing yourself, giving yourself a little bit of, like a little bit of room to, to wander, shall we say. I mean, there’s times in life where it’s like, important to reach a destination. And then there’s other times in life where it feels like you can just kind of like let yourself, you know, give yourself some time and let yourself wander and, and sometimes and look like. I mean, maybe this sounds like, oh, well, this is this privileged thing. It doesn’t have to be, right? I mean, you can be doing that while you’re working, right? I mean, you can be engaged in other things and, and so allow yourself to kind of like, to, to do that.

I, I do think. And one of the things I think I’m becoming more aware of as I, as I age is just the degree to which like there, there is just sort of a. I think the term is workism culture within this country, right? Of, you know, expecting people to have this very all encompassing commitment to their, their employer, to some institution. There’s a lot of like, psychological mind games that places are playing about this. And I think one of the benefits of resisting. That is just like creating more space for yourself. Like, you know, I mean, you can do a perfectly good job at your job and still create time to do other things, and that time can be very valuable. That doesn’t mean that you should be avoiding doing things that might be meaningful if they’re involved with their job. But like, there’s a certain level of just, again, sort of mind games that these places are playing to try to convince you that, like, oh, gosh, you know, this is. This is your home, this is your family. It’s like, no, no, no, it’s a job. Like, that’s cool. I’m a professional. I want to do my best, right? But, like, I also have boundaries and like, I have my own life to live. And like, there are. There’s aspects of that that don’t. That don’t and really can’t intersect with. With my professional life. So. Perfect.

Juan David: At the end of our show, we have a section called overrated or underrated. So are you a topic or statement? And Falcon, think the first one. Odessa operator on the radio.

Geoff: I don’t know, it depends who you’re talking to. I mean, I think Odessa’s pretty great. You know, I like a lot of music. You know what I was watching recently, you’ll appreciate this. I mean, we saw them, My wife and I saw them live. I’m probably just supposed to say the one word, right? But that’s okay. Yes. So we saw them live a year ago and the. I watched this like, little YouTube thing recently about, like, the setup for one of their shows recently, A Lollapalooza. I mean, the amount of work that goes in to like that hour and a half is mind boggling. I mean, I’m sure you’re aware of it on some level when you go see them, because I think one of the things that’s cool about them is just the amount of stagecraft involved, right? Like the drum line, the lights, you know, the. All the guest singers. Right. The trombone players. There’s just this, like, huge. But then when you see like, all the work that goes into setting that up, right? And then you imagine like, all the work that went into planning all of that to like, get all the people into the right place at the right time to like, design the things and then to figure out, okay, we have 30 minutes to like, put up this insane light rig. Like, how do we even do that? Or. Right. So just the amount of energy that goes into that, I. I think it’s inspiring maybe. Right on A certain level, like, you may not like their music. You know, you may like their music, you may not. But I think, like, if you watch some of the production, it’s cool to see what you can do, right? It’s cool to see, like, what you can accomplish and the type of show that you could put on. So.

Juan David: Do you see the movie?

Geoff: What’s that?Juan David: Did you see the movie that they made?

Geoff: No.

Juan David: Yeah, it was like a. It was basically a movie about the live show.

Geoff: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I’m. And I’m a sucker for those, too. I. Years ago, I was into Fish for a little bit, and Fish also had this, like, really incredible light show and still does. Actually, like, not. It’s different than Odessa. It’s much more just like, pointed lights, but they have this amazing light rig. That was the first real concert I ever saw, actually. It was like Fish at the palace of Auburn Hills, which is no longer. I think it was, like, 1997. I was a. I think I was a senior in high school. And I. Fish was touring, and I went to get tickets. And I remember it was. It snowed a lot that day. And I remember by driving to the palace to go to the box office, it’s like the only car in the parking lot. And I walked in and, like, tickets have been on sale for, I don’t know, months, Right? So I was just expecting we would be sitting up in the balcony somewhere, and the person who was selling it was like, oh, we just opened up a new set on the main floor, and we were like, in the 10th row or something, right? And I still remember, like, going. Watching them come out again, like, this is first Rock Drive. And they started playing the song Golgi Apparatus. This is Fish. These are interesting songs. It’s actually a pretty good song. But there’s this moment in that song. They come out and it’s kind of like this groovy beat, and it’s all, like, purple and blue. And then there was this moment early on that song where they get to the chorus, and all of a sudden all the lights flip out in the crowd, and it’s all this orange and my brain is blow. It was awesome. So light show for them.

Daft Punk, I never saw live. But their whole Pyramid tour, I don’t know if you’ve seen. Have you seen any of the lighting they did for that?

Juan David: I think so, yeah.

Geoff: Okay. But there’s like. And so there. I actually argue in certain ways, Odessa is more impressive with the lighting in terms of what they’re Doing with video and stuff like that. But the thing that’s mind blowing about Daft Punk, if you go, you have to find some of the right videos, is the timing that they would get on some of the things. So they have this one part at the end of one of their shows in sort of the encore where they’re wrapping up this one song and they’re transitioning it to something else. And as they do this, there’s this, like, red little stripe of light that climbs. This is like, behind them, right? So the two of them are in this pyramid together, and behind them on this huge lighting rig, this red line climbs all the way up, right? And then it comes all the way down, okay? And then it runs onto the pyramid that they’re standing on, right? And it goes, goes up the sides of the pyramid and like, perfectly timed with the, the sort of the drop of the next song. Their suits light up with that red light. Like, the suits had this lighting, like, in them and it’s just like, again, whoever designed that, hats off like that. Like, I’ve never seen anything like it. It was mind blowing. So I’m still annoyed that I missed that, that show. They were touring at the time. I was working out in Seattle and I remember thinking, like, Daft Punk. Like, I don’t know, I mean, I guess I’ve heard of them, but they seem like they’re maybe a little dated. But now I’ve seen the videos and I’m like, maybe that’s a regret, right? I didn’t see Daft Punk live in the pyramid thing. Now they’ve broken up, so it’s over. But maybe they’ll reunite them at Coachella some year or something like that. But, but yeah, going to see Odessa with Elise’s part is sort of a kind of like, I, I, I do like this band. I feel like, you know, there’s, there’s some neat things about them. They don’t seem like bad people. And I do want to see them live because I don’t want to feel regret later. But.

Aaryaman: The next one, Neon Signs.

Geoff: Oh, well, let’s see. We’re just talking about lighting. I mean. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Neon Signs. Like good stuff, right? I have a couple of them, so I guess I can’t argue that they’re underrated.

Aaryaman: Where do you make them? Because you have some, like, good ones.

Geoff: I’ve ordered them. They’re super expensive. Probably worth it. But yeah, lighting in general. I mean, I think, I think if, like, if I could go back and have another career, I think it would probably be as like a lighting tech or something like that. I think that would, I would get a kick out of that. But yeah, good lighting. I appreciate that. Neon signs. I mean they’re neon signs like hanging in like the Museum of Modern Art. So it’s hard to argue that they’re overrated. I mean, maybe they are overrated though. Maybe that’s not art. I don’t know.

Aaryaman: Art is what we make of it.

Geoff: Yeah. Talking about word, like words and stuff like that. Like some of those are just words. Right. But they’re. Yeah, neon. I’ve always thought neon art is kind of neat in small amounts. I mean, I think it would be difficult to go to like an all neon show. You would go in and just be like totally. Like totally. I couldn’t see anything. Right. Like all after images for the next couple hours.

Juan David: The next one, the essays by Paul Grant.

Geoff: I don’t know, I, I haven’t read too many of them. I mean I, I probably overrated. I mean, but this is like from a Hacker News vantage point. And like there’s a lot of Paul Graham fanboys on Hacker News. So I mean, you know, it’s like anytime they post One that’s like 10 years old, it’s like a reliable like thousand upvotes. It’s like, okay, I think we’ve all read this before, but I think, I mean, I think Paul Graham’s been in a position to, to, to point out some interesting things. I think there’s some wisdom in some of those. So. Yeah, but I think from the perspective of like what people seem to get out of them, you know.

Aaryaman: The next one. Pinocchio’s pizza at Harvard.

Geoff: Have you had it?Aaryaman: I haven’t.

Geoff: Have you had it? Pilgo’s pizza is very good. I will never eat it again. But yeah, I don’t know. I mean, it’s hard to know. And this is one of the reasons that colleges get away with some of the stuff they pull. Is because I have experiences of having that pizza that are part of my life that are really not necessarily just about pizza. It’s about being awake at 2:30 in the morning. I think Pinocchio is close at 2, so probably like closer to 1 and 3. Being hungry, like being at that particular location in Harvard Square, like running into other people there. Just the feeling of the place, the smell, the lighting. The fact they have a. It’s probably still there. Maybe they’ve moved it. But as long as I ever went there, they had a, A photo Hanging of the Italian soccer team from like, I don’t know, the 1968 World cup or something like that. So, yeah, just. And. And the people that work there, those guys with their. Like they have this uniform they wear or like they did. I hope they still do this. But it’s like this. It’s like a. It’s hard to describe. It’s. It’s like a white. It’s all white with red trim and has their names on it. So it’s clearly like, there’s a lot of signs that this is an institution that people have made sort of deep investments in. And the pizza is pretty good. Like, it depends. Like, it varies. You have to kind of catch them at the right moment. They’re always taking stuff out of the oven. So if you get like a fresh slice of certain types of things, it can be quite. But then there are other types where, like, if it’s been sitting in the oven for two hours is actually better. So you actually don’t want the fresh stuff. So people will come in and ask them kind of what state things are in, and there’s a little bit of a back and forth about kind of what’s available and what’s fresh and. And stuff like that. But. But yeah, I mean, a real institution, right. I mean, they’ve been showing up there doing that for a long time, so you got to respect that. Goodwill.

Juan David: Goodwill hunting over it.

Geoff: Around the Raider. Jeez. About movies. I don’t know. I don’t have a strong opinion on. Good. Good bowl hunting. Elliot Smith song in that. Pretty good. I’ll say that. I think the soundtrack was pretty. Pretty decent. But even just that one song. I saw Elliot Smith live once in Boston, that was quite good, actually. But yeah, that’s a good song. So.

Aaryaman: Next one, your favorite. IClicker.

Geoff: Jeez, I don’t know. We have to be politic about that one, you know, like, better than. No, I. Clicker.

Aaryaman: No, you’re just playing it safe.

Geoff: Sure.

Aaryaman: What do you actually think?

Geoff: I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure I need to like, editorialize on this a lot. Like, I mean, just look at, like, look at what it is. Look at how much you paid for it. Draw the obvious conclusion, I think, right. I mean, look, if it. If it cost $5, I feel differently. If the university provided them to students, I would feel differently if they hadn't come out with like a ton of new models every year. Which seems like a strategy to kill off the resale market. I would feel differently about it. You know, I mean, it's like a 60 plastic device with five buttons on it. Right. I mean. Okay, Right. I mean, you can probably get a CD player for like five bucks these days or, you know,$10. And there’s like more electronic. I mean, like, the garage door opener for your garage door does not cost $60. If it does, then it’s probably the garage door company ripping you off. No, I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I think, again, I think the idea of there are people that are making these incremental improvements of things. So just having students sitting there the whole time on their phones, not good. Pressing a button from time to time, better. Can we do better than that? Probably, but that starts to require some. Some different models. So, like, given, you know, what, what people are doing with it, I think it’s fine. I just wish that it didn’t cost that much. But could.

Aaryaman: Could CS or any department make a replacement?

Geoff: You can make a replacement. I mean, there’s schematics online and people have done teardowns of them. I mean, I think last time, I think I found one. I think there’s maybe about two or three dollars worth of hardware in there. I mean, you know, I think. I think the. Yeah. I mean, I. Again, like, there’s arguments about this. I don’t want to be too glib about it. I mean, this is something that smart people have thought about. You asked, well, we could use the phone, but like, the phone is a source of distraction. So there is some argument about this. I don’t know. It’s a great question. Like, I’ve. I’ve wondered a little bit. I’ve been starting to think about how would I design a class today that wasn’t sort of skill focused? Because I think with skill building, which is what we’re doing in my class, it’s very easy to make the argument that a passive viewing style experience is not supporting this, because I want students interacting with the material. That’s how they’re going to learn. If I was teaching a course that was structured differently, what, how would we do things? I think it’s an interesting question. You know, I don’t think there’s no place for that type of thing. I just think that, like, you know, if you really want students to interact with stuff and the content really can be interactive, then it’s probably better to just, you know, change the format to something that is more centered around interaction. Rather than Sort of trying to bolt it on to this experience that is sort of fundamentally passive, Right? So. But anyway, it’s tough.

Juan David: What class would you teach that would be more, like, active? Like, if you could pick any topic, it doesn’t have to be computer science.

Geoff: So I’ve been thinking a little bit about, like, a course on sort of the intersection between technology and society and in. Because I think. I mean, I think we’re probably at the point where it’s time for us to start and maybe this is happening and maybe I’m just not aware of it. But, like, I feel like the computer science department, like, we’ve created these things and you’re all using them, and it’s probably time for us to start to figure out, like, what’s happening, right? Like, how is this going wrong? So, for example, I mean, the thing I always bring up in this conversation is smoking, right? Okay, so, like, now everyone knows smoking is bad for you. People are still doing it, but not very many. Much many fewer than in the past. But, like, this is hard and is just useful for me to think about from time to time, which is that we spent, like decades, centuries even, smoking with no awareness that it was bad for us. People just did it, right? People actually thought it was good for you, right? It was like, oh, it’ll make you perk you up with stuff like that. It helps with appetite control. That’s sort of hard to wrap your mind around. It’s like that thing about being wrong. We were wrong, but now we’re not wrong. But it’s hard to imagine how we went like that for so long. And I think there’s this tendency also to think about the people in the past, sort of like consciously or subconsciously as if they were stupid, right? It’s like, oh, we know better. No, we’re just doing different things wrong, right? So 30 years from now, will we look back on us now with all of our phones and be like, that was insane. Why were people just allowed to use phones everywhere? Like, you know, because that’s how we think about smoking. It was like people used to smoke on airplanes. Do you realize that, like, there’s still all this because it takes so long for these planes to get out of service. Like, there’s still all this signage about it, right? There’s like a no smoking sign in a plane, right? Like, we still have to have that light on for people, right? But just the fact that, like, you used to be able to smoke in a. In a tube, right? It was like there was a smoking section on the airplane. I mean, this was a fiction, obviously, because the whole airplane’s connected together. So it’s like the smoking section, the non smoking section, like literally two feet away. So anyway, I mean, I certainly think that there are mistakes that we’re making with how we’re using technology and how we’re, how we’re exposing ourselves to it that we will probably come to regret later because we’re basically performing this big experiment on all of ourselves and we don’t necessarily know how to evaluate the results. So anyway, I think that might be a fun conversation to have. And I think when I thought about it, I thought about it in the context of also sort of like trying to do some experiments or figure out ways for people to try things, right? Like, hey, try doing this thing. Try using a different search engine, Try going without your phone for a couple of days. Try finding your way to somewhere without using your phone. Perform these experiments and use them to sort of try to understand a little bit better your own relationship to technology. Because it’s not going away. We’re not going to put the. This isn’t going to be like smoking or it’s just be like, no, we’re going to stop it all together. I think these things are too useful. But there are aspects of our relationship to them that are troublesome. And when you look at our society, there’s also all these metrics that are headed in bad directions, right. In terms of sort of societal health that do we know that technology is to blame? No, but it’s a plausible explanation for some of these things. So.

Aaryaman: And the last one.

Geoff: Overrated or underrated? I don’t know. I mean, this is my hat. So maybe I am maybe starting to feel like it’s time for a new hat. Something different.Aaryaman: What would it say?

Geoff: I don’t know. You know, the thing is, I ordered another box of these actually before I started feeling this way, but they’re, they’re just not the same, you know? Well, part of the problem actually is literally that I have a pretty large head, right? So you see, I’m like, I only have, I’m three holes here, so the new ones are even a little smaller. So those I’m on only two holes and then it pops off all the time. And I think like they’ve changed the design of these little things and they just don’t stay as well. So I’m kind of down to my last half basically because I don’t know how to make more of these. I do have some in my. In My garage, if anybody wants one, maybe I’ll give no one. Yeah, I think there’s a question from the. Is there a question from the audience?

Friend of Aaryaman and Juan David: Yeah, we’ve been dying to ask.

Aaryaman: Go ahead.

Friend: So you attended VERB as a student, right?

Geoff: Yep.

Friend: And now you t. UIUC as a teacher professi. So I know lasting they’re from Harvard works a little bit better than saying you’re an Illinois, like, in interactions after college. But your experience within the college versus your experience within uiuc. Are there similarities and differences that affect the experience of a student that you could say that are notable in shaping a person?

Geoff: So that’s a really interesting question. I’ll say a few things, but I will say that again, I’m not a student here, so I really don’t have the student perspective on the experience. First of all, I will say that. And this has continued to be true throughout my life, Harvard is not uncomplicated in the sense of the impact it has on other people. So I go like, oh, this has a good impact. Well, sometimes both me and Susanna have had, I think, instances where it’s worked for us and also places where it’s worked against us. And. And justifiably so. Right. I mean, I think there’s some people that are that. For. For. There’s some people where that name triggers things. And they’re not wrong. It’s not clear that they would be as upset if you were like, Yale or Penn or whatever. All the schools have the same. Same problems. But, yeah, there’s just something about Harvard that sets people off sometimes.

I think one thing, I think I’m. And I’m still sort of processing that experience. Even at this later date. I was thinking the other day that as I’ve been reading certain things about how Harvard does admissions and stuff like that, it’s been sort of dawning on me, like, oh, gosh. Because my perspective on Harvard as a student was like, oh, there’s all these really smart people. That’d be great. Not so much. They’re not dumb. But if you look at the number of legacies that Harvard is admitting and the number of students they admit for all sorts of other reasons. So I was, I think, in a certain way, unprepared for that experience. Just in terms of, like, I’m not sure I was prepared academically either, but I certainly wasn’t prepared, like, socially or, you know, I mean, I was reading recently, I mean, you know, and this sounds to me like somebody. The last gasp of a Failed system. But someone making the argument that like, oh well, Harvard’s so great because they admit like a bunch of legacies and people from all these rich families. And that’s fine because what happens is they also admit a bunch of students from like, you know, less privileged backgrounds and then the students from the less privileged backgrounds can make friends with the rich students and that’ll all work out okay. That didn’t happen to me. I mean, I actually did end up getting to know a fairly well to do gentleman in graduate school. That was sort of a different thing. And he was also like flying under the radar screen in a lot of ways intentionally.

But, but anyway, so it’s a great question. I think that the biggest difference I’ve noticed and the thing that has sort of stuck out to me in the years since has been sort of the residential life experience, which sort of I mentioned earlier, but just a sense of like, I think Harvard and I think, and I’m not even sure that this is true of all the Ivy League schools, but I think there’s a few of them that just put a lot of thought and care into how students live, right? Like the day to day experience of like the dorming and food and like these things sound kind of trivial, right? But you know, just being in the position to have some of that stuff taken care of. Right. In a reasonable way and then also having it be done in a way that really is designed to support community. So, for example, at Harvard, every dorm, every house has its own dining hall. Which means that in the house where my wife and I worked when we were in graduate school and lived when we were in graduate school, there are two other houses right there. So there is like three dining halls that you could probably throw a baseball from one to another, right? And they talk about how when people come in from other institutions, they’re frequently like, this is insane. Why are there so many dining halls? And why don’t we just close them down and put one big one where everybody can eat? Could be so much more efficient. And the thinking is the point is inefficiency. The point is that these dining hall servicing community. And so when you walk into them as a student, if you walk down there all by yourself, you’re seeing the same 200, 300 people consistently, right? And so now it’s much more likely that you’ll be able to like sit down with some people and have a conversation or whatever. So there’s really this focus on how do we use these aspects of the residential system to support Community.

One of the things that makes me really frustrated at Illinois, for example, is like when people tell me that the Illinois residential housing is more expensive than the quite overpriced off campus housing and the food is terrible and all these things. And I’m thinking we should do better. At Harvard, students live in the dorms all four years. They don’t have to. They do that because it’s better. It’s actually a better experience for most of them. You can live off campus, no one is forcing you to do anything, but they’ve set things up in such a way so that that experience is really, is really special. So I think like, in retrospect, it’s just been something that I valued a lot.

Friend: So would you say all those trivial things like the cafeteria, was the quality better?

Geoff: Yes. I mean, based on the pictures I’ve seen, I mean, I haven’t eaten in the dining halls here. So my, my. From time to time when there’s a conversation that comes up about fresh food and stuff like that, and I have to say, like, this is one of those things that you only realize in retrospect because when, you know, we were there and I ate the dining hall food there for a long time, they were constantly talking about, oh, we won this award and stuff like this. And you’re always like, you did, like, the food here is just fine, right? It never felt like it was like award winning institutional food, but I never ended the paraway, right? So now it’s like, okay, at least they cook the chicken properly all the time. So, so I, and I, and I don’t, I don’t understand enough. I mean, I’m not a professional residential life person at this point, but there’s a part of me that just feels like somehow universities gave this away, right? Like University of Illinois is a land grant institution. Like we own a ton of property around here, right? It feels like if we wanted to build functioning high quality dorms and undercut the rest of the real estate market, we could do that, right? We could basically make Green Street Realty go away. We don’t have to make a profit on this stuff, right? They do. So we should be able to set it up. We own the land, we should be able to operate it and we should be able to provide this to students to reduce the cost of attendance and stuff like that. But somehow now we have this sort of parasite that’s grown on us that we can’t get rid of because like, oh well, the local business people will be mad because they don’t get to make tons of money off our students anymore. But that’s not the university’s core function, right? It’s not to support a local economy. Its core function is to educate students and to provide them with a good environment to learn in. And so, I don’t know, it just feels. And having been at Harvard for a while, you do start to realize again, like, that they’ve just invested a lot in this system and it’s sort of a continuous process of defending it, investing it. And honestly, the fact that they don’t just have one big dining hall is kind of astonishing, Right? Because I feel like every administrator, administrator they hire, that’s their like, one big plan for improving campus. It’s like, let’s just have one big dining hall. It’s like, no, we’re not going to do that.

So, yeah, I mean, I think that that again, in retrospect, it’s like so much of my memories from my time there are from meals. And just like talking to people at meals, conversations, long conversations, you know, we would, you know, sometimes my. When Susanna and I were at Elliot House, we would laugh because, like, there’d be some lunches where we’d go down early for lunch, like at like 11:30. They also do impose meal times on Sunday students, which is not necessarily always popular. But I think there’s a strong argument in favor of this, which is that, like, one should not eat dinner at 2 in the morning. In general, once in a while, if you want to go to Pinocchios, they’re still open. But like, on a normal basis, it’s actually good to have kind of like normal rhythms. So we would go down for lunch at 11:30 and we’d end up being there at like 2:30 when they closed, closed down lunch. And we had like sat through like three rounds of lunch, right? Because you’re sitting there, you’re having a nice conversation, and some new people come in and then they sit down and pretty soon you’re talking to them. And like, there’s just so much socialization that goes on that way. And so I think places. And again, I don’t think it’s even very many places that have figured out how to do this. But I think those investments are kind of, kind of incredible in retrospect. Right.

Friend: So what I’m catching on is that hobby does actions that have good habits. So not just academics. So were there any parties?

Geoff: Oh, yeah, yeah, they’re pretty. Pretty lame. Pretty lame parties. Well, I don’t know. I mean, whatever. I. I Don’t know. I don’t go to parties here. I mean, I have thought, like, maybe one of these nights I’ll go to cams or something like that just to get a sense of what’s going on there. Hopefully not a night where, you know, somebody pulls a gun or whatever. But, yeah, no, they’re, you know, Harvard students, hold parties. Is as a resident tutor, one of the parts of our job was to close down parties, right. In the instance where they were. There’s a certain amount of tolerance for this, and it’s a different time right now. I can probably safely talk about this in the past, but basically, during the time I was at Harvard, there was a fair amount of institutional tolerance for underage drinking. Like, the houses would have Stein Club, right, Where they would basically just have a keg out in a common area and you could just come down and help yourself. And no one’s checking IDs, right. It’s private property, sort of. But, you know, most of the people there are minors at that point, or not minors or under the legal drinking age. And I remember talking with people about this, including administrators. They were like, look, okay, this is our opportunity to show students responsible drinking behavior. This is how you have a beer. You have a beer with a buddy and you have a nice conversation. You don’t shotgun ate beers and then go do whatever. This is social drinking. This is how adults handle alcohol. In this way. So. But. So, yeah, so as tutors, we were expected to break up parties. And I always felt like that was going to be, like, a pretty embarrassing task if I ever had to do it. And I was a tutor at Elliott House for, I think, five years, and I had to do it once where it was, like, really awful and awkward, you know, where I had to. I went up, knock on the door, okay, it’s time to shut this down. It was a lot of control at that point in the sense that, like. The. Hosts of the residents of the suite were pretty inebriated and not in a position to ask people to leave. So anyway, went up, knocked on the door. Okay, shut the door, come downstairs 20 minutes later. So I had to be. I had to be that uncool person that stood there at the door while everybody walked out. And so anyway, but that was more than. The job was more than worth that. So I’ll take that one embarrassing moment.

But, yeah, I mean, there is. It’s interesting I haven’t asked about this recently, but at least at the time, I mean, there was some ways that they were holding the line in terms of just like normalizing. And I think certain students would push back on this today. They’re just like, I don’t want to eat breakfast at 7:30. Well, they shut down breakfast at 9:30. So if you’re up, you have breakfast. If not, wait till lunch. Right.

Friend: So did you say that students have gotten worse because of technology? Because that now you can do so much more work whenever you are. So people are up to like two, three eating, you doing your homework. I know, like csm, economic economy, whatever majors. And they tell me that they stay out that night and go seek like when there’s day outside.

Geoff: Yeah, you know, we used to do that. Yeah, that’s on it. That’s not. It’s actually pretty. I’m actually pretty pleased to hear that in a certain way. Like not, not necessarily, but just in the sense of. Like when I. So when I was in school, we did a lot of work at night. And that’s sort of a computer science thing too. This is something that’s talked about in that, that coders book. In the sense of. And I look, look the other night, like I don’t do all nighters anymore because I just cannot function for like a week right. If I’m up all night. The first couple years I was here though, I pulled an all nighter before every first fall class. Like the first time I did. Actually the first time I did this was spring 2018. And I was up building the slide tool that I used at 8am and I remember it being about 1:30 in the morning and I thought it was working and then I found a bug and then it was like 6:30 and I had class at 8. So I was like, okay, I did that. I think fall 2019 again. And then I don’t think fall 2020 because I didn’t have like a lecture anymore. So that was maybe good. But there is something about nighttime and it’s still true. So again, the other night Suzanne and I were up reading. I was like, okay, I have to work tonight. She was like, okay, I’m going to bed. So I was up till maybe like 12:30, which is kind of late for me now. But there’s something about those hours sometimes that other stuff turns off. It’s dark, it’s easier to focus. So when I was TF for the operating systems class, we usually held office hours from like 8 to midnight, basically because that’s when most students were working. And when I got here, I actually suggested doing this for 125. And they were like, oh, students don’t work late at night here. I was like, they don’t. And I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, now I have deadlines for my homework problems at midnight. So we get a little bit of traffic around that time from students who are wrapping up. But yeah, no, the tradition of staying up is. It’s good to hear. Again, I don’t want to say it’s good. It’s interesting to hear that that continues because that was certainly something. When I actually, when I took the operating systems course, I had kind of a scheduled all nighter every week on Thursdays, right. So Thursday nights stuff was due on Friday at 5. So Thursday night I would just head down to the science center basement for a while. I would bring like a 2 liter of mountain Dew with me to. It turns out that that does like really terrible things to your digestive system. So I stopped that, unfortunately. What I replaced it with was cigarettes. Speaking of smoking. So developed a little bit of a bad habit at that time. But it was kind of nice though. I mean, because the nice thing about cigarettes, here I am endorsing smoking on camera, is that, you know, you had to leave the building, right? Because at least at that time you couldn’t smoke inside. You used to be able to smoke inside, by the way, years ago, because it was healthy. So, you know, every hour or so I would get up from my computer and go outside and have a cigarette at 3 in the morning, 4 in the morning, 5:30 in the morning outside the science center, then go back to work. But yeah, no, the late night culture is something that’s still going strong. And I will say that even when I was there, most Harvard students did not eat breakfast. They just didn’t make it up in time for breakfast. I think they started to run breakfast 10. So. But you’d see people just like sneaking in, grabbing something and then running off to class. That was actually one of the best meals of the day, I have to say. If you could get up for it. And I was depending on which semester it was, I was sometimes on a good schedule and sometimes not. But like if you could get up for it, like breakfast at 7:30 was kind of like just a beautiful experience, right? Because the dine out was quiet. There’s like beautiful light coming in through the windows, smell of coffee. There’s usually some interesting people awake at that hour. So yeah, if you could swing it. You have other questions. Very good question.

Friend: We’re going through. And I had to remember that one specifically, I was like, do we still have some of the Harvard experience, like.

Geoff: In every place I am.Friend: I didn’t have a question, but it goes back to when we were talking about passion. I remember how you said you were. I don’t know if it’s the same for sim, but it’s. I heard this podcast, right, that was talking about how people should just forget about their passions. Probably Cal, just do something, choose something new, and then passion will come with tough perks. So at first I was, like, kind of close to the idea because I’ve always been the type of person that’s like, you’re gonna do what you love, right? And then everything else will come around that. But this person was explaining how many people in college, they just don’t. Like, they’re young, so they don’t truly even know what they want to do with their lives. So it’s like, you just gotta forget about your passion. Like, putting yourself out there, it’s just a career. And then, like, with time, you’ll learn to love it. So I don’t know. What’s your stance with that? How do you feel like. Because I understand the point of like. Yeah, of course. Like. Like, you will never know if you truly love it unless you’re in there and trying it and putting effort into it. But at the same time, it’s like, I don’t know.

Geoff: No. And. And I think, like, it’s tough, right? Because it’s. The thing is, it’s fun to be good at something, right? Like, when you get good at something, it can be fun, right? Like, and it feels like you just. These new opportunities open up for you real. Like, wow, Like, I have this. Whatever it is, right? Like, if you can, when you get good at a certain thing, then that can become sort of its own source of satisfaction. Now at some point, there starts to become this. And I used to think about this a lot when I was a kid. For whatever reason, it was like, do I like this because I’m good at it, or do I actually like it? But on some level, the boundaries there start to blur because, like I said, it’s fun to be good at something. It turns out you can derive a lot of satisfaction in life that way from solving certain problems and just applying your expertise that you’ve developed to a certain thing. So I think that the danger is the learn to love it thing, right? Which is like, you know, will you. Right. Or. Or. Or will you not? And I think in other cases, too, it’s like, okay, Will I get good at it enough to really feel that sense of. Of accomplishment? Which can be another issue. So I think that’s, you know, one of these things that’s just on. Is so personal and so individual that it’s very hard to offer sort of general guidance about it. But it is one of those, I think, just being aware of that tension, right. In a sense, it’s like, okay, you know, so, for example, you might think, I’m really interested in solving these particular problems, right? Or there’s this particular thing about the world that I care about a lot, like, how do I participate in that? What’s a way for me to find my way into the groups that are working on this kind of thing? And that might be tremendously rewarding, even if it’s not something you’re passionate about because you feel a connection to this thing.

I think even the word passion is interesting. I remember having a conversation with a colleague about this term and how we used it sometimes in CS1. Because passion is this temporal thing, right? Like, I mean, you know, good relationships have some, you know, good romantic relationships have some element of passion in them, but they also have this, like, stability to them. That’s like a different type of thing, right? And so passionate feels like something that might wear off, right? You might get, you know, you might get over it, right. It might be something that then attaches itself to something else. So I think at some level, finding ways to orient what you’re doing around your values and about the things that you really, truly care about in the. World. Is another perspective to take on it and just think, okay, because there’s room in life for other things. I used to think this way about music. Just like, oh, when I was a kid, I had a time where I felt like I wanted to be a musician. And now I feel like I really enjoy being a listener. I’m not sure I really want to have to do that. I am in awe of the people who are good at it and totally happy to consume what they’ve created. And I feel like it enriches my life in these completely, you know, just amazing ways. But, like, I don’t feel like I have to participate in that, right? So.

Friend: And there was this argument with a video I said was pretty much talking how in school they want you to do, like, they want you to be good at everything, right? When instead they say that another theory would do or another method would be, why are you forcing a kid? That does not. Like, of course, certain. Like, let’s say you’re good at math and not good at reading, right. There’s like, certain things they gotta teach you so you’re able to read. But why are you trying to make this kid as good as reading as in math if he’s already good at math? Why just not exploit like. Yeah, like, you know, like, teach him more, use that to an advantage.

Geoff: So, yeah, and this sounds a lot like Cal. It wouldn’t be surprising if this was. Because I think he has this argument too, which is really sharpness. And there I think it’s another one of these sort of personal choices, Right. I mean, I think that the counterargument to that is something I’ve heard somebody say, which is specialization is for insects. Specialization is for insects. Like, we’re humans, we can do all these things, right? And maybe at the end of life, what you want to feel like is not that you necessarily devoted so much time into this one area, but then you were able to experience all of these things about the world. Because even reading, everyone should learn to read. But learning to read well, learning to enjoy reading, getting good enough at it that you can enjoy it opens up these tremendous opportunities for just enjoyment, but also just a broader experience of the world. Right.

Friend: When you say that, it’s more to a personal extent of like, enjoying life, for example, when it comes to the professional world. As before, it was like you wanted people that was able to do a little bit of everything because there wasn’t enough people. This industries right now there is so much people. So you want. You don’t want a person that can do a little bit of everything. You want a person that’s good at one thing and excels on that. Yeah, that’s like. It’s kind of contradictory. Personal experience and then professional experience and then how that comes down to education.

Geoff: Yes. You never. You never know, though. I mean, I think that, you know, I would also. I would always be a little suspicious of arguments that are like, so grounded in efficiency. Because it’s like, you know, on some level, I don’t care what that corporation wants, right? Like, that might be what’s the best thing for the corporation. You know, this other type of entity that has its own objectives. But, like, I’m me, right? And like, I feel like, you know, there are. There are ways to sort of like participate in these bigger systems, but there’s also this sense of like, my own life is sort of an individual experience. And, you know, I mean, one of the things, at some point Suzanne and I were talking about Some of this stuff. And I started to develop this metaphor of this difference, this sort of idea of leaving, of exploration, of sort of like leaving the fire, right? So you imagine it’s night, it’s cold, there’s a fire, people gather around this, and there’s a sense of safety and community in that. But then there’s also sometimes moments where you want to go off on your own, you want to be off somewhere. And once you’re out of that community, that’s when you end up needing a lot of those other skills. That’s when that sort of, well, roundedness comes into play because it’s like you don’t have those other people because maybe you’ve gone off to do something completely different or unique or just to explore. So, yeah, I mean, I think it’s a balance. I do think that. I don’t know.

But you’re right too in the sense that there’s also this tension between sort of like your professional identity and how you live in the world. And I think it feels like to me sometimes that maybe the idea of like getting to the point where like, you’re the best person in the world at something, right. It’s like very attractive on a certain level. But also very uncertain. Whereas like the, the ability to experience life in this very full way is really open to everybody. It’s not competitive. It’s not like I have to prove myself in comparison with all these people. It’s just out there for you, Right. And you can just go have that experience and it doesn’t compete with anybody else. I mean, that’s one of the things I’ve always loved about education. So education is fundamentally like non zero sum, right. Like when you teach somebody, the amount of knowledge in the world has increased. It’s not leaving me, it’s not going into you. It’s that whole candle lighting Jefferson metaphor. You know, and I’ve always loved things that are like that because I think when you put people into competition, it doesn’t bring out necessarily good things in ourselves. Right. Whereas if you focus on ways that like we can all participate in things, then, then it’s nicer. So, but anyway, I mean, it’s, you know, again, it’s a little bit of both. So it depends on you and the situation you find yourself in.

Friend: Now, referencing back to when you said like you would find yourself acting like a child. I have a beer where we start. Still the same voice and soul that we remember as like being as kids, but we have Gone through experiences and if anything, the way we choose to focus on details in certain situations, you obviously learn from experience, but the way you craft your thought process just becomes more intimate. So I think we still are kids.

Geoff: Oh yeah. I mean, I. And I think like, I remember well, I mean, I think one of the things that may or may not disappoint you as you age is like noticing that about people, right? Is it just like noticing that about other people? The degree to which, like they may have stopped developing or, you know, like, I think as an adult I’ve had interactions with people sometimes where I’m like, did that really happen? Like, it’s just so weird. And then, but then I’m like, oh, okay. Well, if I imagine being in seventh grade, this makes more sense, right? You know, it’s like, you know, because I do think at some point we’re all struggling to get past those things, but there’s also a sense of like trying to understand how to reach back and to pull out some of those parts of ourselves that are good, right. That are not, you know, like that I think sometimes we rush to put away and the, you know, in the quest to become grown up or adult or whatever. And I think, you know, again, not to get too high level on this, but like, there’s ways in which the world is designed, I think to sort of like put us to work, right? Like, you know, I’ve just probably been reading too much Douglas Rushkoff recently. But like, I mean, he talks about sort of like these various ideas of sort of corporate personhood, right? And, and how they played out in the world. And I was actually just reading the introduction to another book where the author was talking about how like, we don’t need to talk about artificial intelligence as if it’s not here because something like a corporation basically meets a lot of the criteria for intelligence already, right? But again, as human beings, the degree to which our responses and behaviors are being shaped or pressured by these types of forces is something for us to think about, right? Because it’s like, yeah, okay, but I’m also still me and this is my life, right? And. My primary goal or responsibility in life is not to necessarily do this thing that provides a paycheck, it’s to do something else, right?

Friend: So I Asia and advertising. That’s why I also believe companies comic convince you that you’re lacking something consens because they are a product that means you sold. There’s a lot of consumers, so it’s like a billboard. The way I see advertising a Billboard that’s held up by nothing. There’s no quality, there’s no actual foundation to support that being good quality. It’s more like superficial. Superficial. I’m not as image that’s just being sold. And that’s why I was wondering, like, Harvard’s actually trying to teach students the quality of living with good habits because I believe that you don’t need much, if anything. Your body’s already a far as it is when you pick up. But I use your muscles. Your muscles release a molecule called a hope molecule that scientists have been recently discovered. And it obviously goes through your body, migrates all over, but when it reaches like your brain, it helps fight off stress and depression. But a lot of people with more more than likely go towards like other substances other than using what we have evolved to be otherwise.

Geoff: I like this question. I don’t know what’s going on. Oh, that Harvard. I mean, you mentioned that Harvard was like trying to instill good habits in students. Right.

Friend: I actually subscribe to the harder health reports because I’m so sick of Googling things and putting academic journal next to it. And he’s getting the basic of why isn’t it information that should be accessible? Why is Google bearing stuff that pisses me off?

Geoff: I don’t know. That’s a great question. Yeah, I mean, I think that, like, you know, I certainly don’t want to. Like. Sound as if I’m sort of lionizing Harvard or like not acknowledging that the institutions like that have a ton of problems. In terms of like how they’re working in the world. But. Yeah, I mean, there’s like little weird vestigial things that happen there that are, that are kind of, kind of interesting. And so, for example, I mean, I am no longer religious, but Harvard has a daily chapel service time. Is it 8:45? Yeah. Well, actually they call it morning prayer. So 8:45 in the morning in this little chapel that’s off the side of the main Memorial Church, which is right in the middle of Harvard Yard on Harvard property. They have a very quick service which consists of like one Bible reading, a short talk by someone who was sort of invited to say a few words, and then the choir sings. Well, the choir sings when you come in and then you sing a hymn at the end. And it’s like 15 minutes. It’s basically designed to allow you to come and then get to class at 9. And I don’t know, do we do anything like this? I mean, we probably do it at some of like the churches Nearby. But this is like something that’s institutionalized, right? In this sense. And again, like, I don’t want to argue that more than. I mean, I used to go to these as a student. I’m pretty sure I was the only student there. There are maybe 10 people that attend regularly. But it’s this weird, and I’m not defending the Christian aspect of it, but there’s something. One of the reasons I enjoyed going was that there was just something about the rhythm of it. Like, first of all, it’s like fantastic to hear a choir in the morning. The choir is really good and it’s fun to sing in the morning. It’s like, okay, like, I don’t mind singing hymns. I still like hymns, you know, so there was just something about that being part of the day, right. That felt like really kind of fun. And again, I don’t know what a modern version of that would be that wasn’t, you know, would be more inclusive. But it would probably have a lot of the same elements though. It’s basically like, you know, singing, listening, some type of, you know, interesting thought provoking reading.

So, so yeah, I mean, there are these little bits and pieces of the institution that I think are, are neat and are worth copying. But, but I, Yeah, it’s. Anyway, I mean, it’s still, it’s. It’s a weird, it’s a weird thing to have sort of gone through and then be trying to understand from, from this perspective. Because my parents also really didn’t have any, you know, to their, to their defense, they didn’t have any understanding of what I was doing either. Like, they didn’t understand Harvard. Like, they just were like, oh, it’s a good school, you know, you’ll probably be okay if you go there. Again, nice job. But it wasn’t like, oh, okay, well, here’s these people you’re gonna meet there, they’re gonna be drawn from this completely other part of society that you have no direct connection with and all this sort of stuff. So. So anyway, I don’t know, hey, Gretz, maybe we should have gone to Michigan. Could have gone to Michigan or Illinois. I didn’t apply to Illinois. Really. I don’t think I had anywhere. I was from Michigan. I don’t think I. Would you have gotten the.

Aaryaman: In state?

Geoff: No, I, we were living in Michigan by that point. Okay. I would have got insane at Michigan. That’s really cheap, actually. Yeah.

Friend: Say you’re like, we’ve. I’ve seen like two Other professors before this, and everybody dope like, you’re.

Geoff: Well, have me back in 10 years. I’m on the younger end for faculty, so. But cool. All right, well, this was fun.Juan David: Well, thank you so much.

Aaryaman: Thank you very much for coming, sharing your many noble ideas. It’s refreshing to hear from someone like you and just understanding how you think about the system after being in it for so long and what you have planned for the coming years, and just seeing that you see the same flaws that we were seeing as students. And it’s just good to see that someone who’s in the system is also thinking about these things and trying to work on making them better for everyone involved.

Geoff: Yeah, we’ll see. I mean, I think one of the things I would say, I mean, first of all, what you guys are doing is really cool. By the way, I think this is a super neat thing and, you know, just, like, mad props for doing this and, you know, for keeping at it. You know, so, like, I’m not. I. I know this isn’t always, like, maybe perceived as a cool thing to do, but I think it’s really, really, really neat. And I think it’s one of those things you guys will look back on later and be like, I’m really glad that we did. We did that. Right. This is sort of like part of your life story now, the. As students, I will say that I think you, you know, as students and as soon to be alumni, you have like a ton of. You have a ton of sort of power cloud voice, right. You know, maybe you don’t think that you do, but, like, on some level, like, you’re the customer sort of, you know, Right. So it’s like, you know, when you, particularly when you get out in the world, and I think, like, when you interact with the university in the future, I think, like, students have an important role to play and families, too. I’ll say that. Like, you know, if you do choose to have family in the future and as a parent, finding ways to think about university education, assuming that there is even such a thing at that point, but there probably will be just thinking about it differently because I think students and families making different choices is really what’s going to drive this thing in the right direction. So. And at that point, you’re kind of. You have more of a. You’ll have more skin in the game. So.

Juan David: And the last thing you know, we are all children. I think you. You didn’t lose the child, the child inside of you, which, you know, calling out when the emperor has no clothes. And I said this in the beginning, but I want to say it again. You. You still are a symbol of that, of. In a world of crazy people, the same ones are considered crazy. And I’m glad that you decide to take on that path, which is, you know, face fiction with people and weapons and so on and so forth.

Geoff: But with time, people will, you know.

Juan David: With the same mission, they will realize that.

Geoff: Well, but that’s the thing, right? I mean, like, you know, you don’t like stuff. There’s a degree to which, like, just. I don’t know. I mean, like, once you do something and you’re just doing that thing, then the thing itself starts to acquire a reality in the world, and pretty soon it’s not really that weird anymore, right? I mean, and that’s good because, like, that’s a sign that, like, you actually have changed the world, right? Because this thing, that was, like, strange, right? So the idea of, like, you know, two students doing a show like this, I mean, it’s probably not been done in the past, right? You guys do it, and now it’s this thing. So other people are going to look at this and be like, there’s this idea of the Overton Window, right? You’re just expanding the idea of what’s possible for people. And not to say they’ll do exactly the same thing, but they may do something else that’s a little bit out of the bounds of what they would have normally thought. Slightly shifted more. Right, exactly. You just open up possibilities a little bit. And I think with some of the things, you know, we’re trying to do, it’s the same thing, right? It’s just like, oh, okay, well, geez, we wouldn’t have thought. And you know, again, I can’t take necessarily all that much credit for this because some of this stuff happened because, you know, events, you know, happened. Like, I think, you know, I think if I had. If we hadn’t had a pandemic, I mean, I think I would probably be teaching the course the same way I’ve been teaching it for years, right? It’s just like, sometimes you end up being pushed. So. But, you know, as you were saying, like, you take the opportunity to perform these experiments. Sometimes the experiments. Sometimes you perform the experiments. Sometimes the experiments are performed on you. But either way, you know, you try to evaluate the results and figure out what to do. But, yeah, I mean, so I think that, like, you know, what you guys are doing here is this tremendously cool thing, and I think it it will and is already benefiting, you know, students. And just expanding their. Expanding their horizons a little bit. So cool. You hope so. Awesome. All right. Is that a wrap? Thank you very much. Hey.