A subtle grimace flickered on the face of Sophomore Computer Science (CS) student, Jacob Grady as Math-CS Major Li Qiang sauntered into B250. “Dirty MatLabber,” sneered Jacob as Li quietly sat down at the adjacent lab computer.
A trend of antagonistic behavior towards Math-CS students has been increasingly prevalent within the undergraduate Computer Science community since it became impacted just four years ago. Tensions flared again last year when Math-CS became impacted–doubling in size after a single year–putting a burden on the UCSD tech job market and leaving many young CS students disillusioned about their six-figure job prospects. Since then, CS majors have coined the derogatory term “MatLabber,” or just “Labber” for short, to describe unwanted Math-CS students.
“It’s like, not fair” Jacob said looking down at his sticker coated MacBook Pro, struggling to debug his CSE 30 assignment. “What the fuck is a seg fault!” He yelled abruptly.
“Anyway,” Jacob continued, “I got into UCSD as a CS major, and some fuckin’ labber’ gets in for Poli Sci, switches to Math-CS, and takes my Google internship? Fuck that noise! If you ask me, Rick Ord is right, we need to build a wall.”
Rick Ord, a populist professor at UCSD, has recently stirred up a large following among undergraduate CS majors, many feeling disillusioned with their futures.
But let me tell all you folks something–I’m very smart, very smart–and back when I went to school CS was great. We won, we won so bigly.
“I’m just a simple boy from the midwest,” started Dr. Ord at one of his rallies inside EBU3 1202 last week. “But let me tell all you folks something–I’m very smart, very smart–and back when I went to school CS was great. We won, we won so bigly. Just look at India. Now, folks, I know India, I know many people there–very smart people. They tell me–you know what they tell me? They’re beating us people. It’s bad. Not good folks.”
The crowd really started to heat up after Professor Ord began his patented wall pitch. “We’re going to build a wall around the CS building folks, a great wall–the great firewall, folks. And who’s going to pay for it?”
“The Math Department!” yelled the crowd in unison.
In a recent and stunning development, the current chair of the Computer Science Department, Dean Tullsen, has been ousted by Rick Ord and his over-enthusiastic group of CSE 11 tutors. Since his victory, Ord has already started work building the wall around the Computer Science building, which can be seen taking shape behind the Rock Bear.
In his concession email, Tullsen wrote, “Rick Ord is going to be our chairman. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. I hope that he will be a successful chair for all CS Tritons.”
The Koala will continue to follow this story as it develops.