Center postdocs and PI teach in New Jersey’s “Governor’s School”

The Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology is a three week summer residential summer program that brought together some of New Jersey’s most talented high school students. It was held from June 29 to July 17 for NJ students who have just completed their junior year in high school. At no cost to their families, students spend part of the summer following their junior year studying on the campus of the Rutgers University School of Engineering. Students must be nominated by their high schools to attend the program, and it is quite competitive to be accepted. 62 students participated in the program this year, with a healthy balance of 32 boys and 30 girls.

The school emphasizes teamwork, with students working together on group research projects that culminate in a conference style final paper and presentation. In addition, students visit local corporations, have distinguished guest speakers, life-skill workshops and many activities that bring the students in contact with those at the forefront of technology. The hands-on learning environment is unique, non-traditional, and inspirational for everyone involved. For many students, the school is their first opportunity to collaborate with others with similar talent and motivation. Students are challenged to work hard to achieve goals, and entrepreneurship is encouraged.

Postdocs Vassilevska and Williams gave a series of lectures at the school, on “Wonderful and Crazy Ideas in Theoretical Computer Science and Math.” They communicated many interesting ideas in logic and computer science to the students, through a long series of question-and-answer interactions. PI Arora also gave a lecture in the series. Our goal was to develop modules on intractability that can be used by high school teachers to introduce these ideas. We shall continue to refine the course in future years.

Website for the course taught by Vassilevska and Williams is available here: http://math.ias.edu/~virgi/greatcs/handouts.html

More information on the school is available here: http://www.osd.rutgers.edu/gs/index.html

Photographs and Video for the events conducted at the school are available here: http://www.osd.rutgers.edu/gs/photos.htm