Number of Faculty | Number of BS Degrees | Number of MS Degrees |
"I recall in Fall 1975: one of the Hollerith card punch machines would often have a sign "out of order". One day I questioned my assumption of what it meant. Turns out the machine was ok, a clever soul (or group) in effect had reserved it for exclusive use!" -- '78
"The faculty! Profs. Scott and Hardell were so welcoming to a transfer student and liberally spent time helping me craft my educational and professional choices. Too much time spent in the "Terminal Room", imagine email in 1975 already; ahead of the curve." -- '75
"The mid-70's were a heady time in the department. Computer Science was a new discipline and we had students from both Math and EE in classes with us. In addition, it was my first close association with foreign students. Most impressive were the Chinese students who would finish every test or quiz and then pull out a Chinese / English dictionary to be sure they correctly understood the question. They did the test twice in the time I did it once." -- '76
"Having to submit all our programs on punch cards and wait for the jobs to be run and having the cards and printed output returned to the cubby holes at WACCC in the basement of the Gordon Library certainly seems like it was a long, long; long time ago. How things have changed!" -- '79
"Computer science was not viewed by a number of my peers outside of the department as a real engineering discipline, mechanical engineering was the king! Still; I saw it as the gateway to the future and the faculty opened my eyes to countless possibilities beyond Fortran programming using the Watfor compiler on the Spectra 70 mainframe. I also remember waiting in long lines to use one of the 24 or so terminals around campus as well as Mary Hardell working with all of us by the WACCC keypunch machines as we tried to get our assembler and Cobol programs working. Beyond computer system architecture; I missed out on the compiler and graphics courses offered every other year and wish I had stayed with the application system modeling course." -- '77
"Mary Hardell, the only female in the faculty and wonderful to learn from and emulate." -- '75
"Prof. Joseph Soetens provided a very-needed "real world" flavor to the CS program. He was always available, always practical; and always supportive. And almost never seen without a cigar. :-)" -- '78
"Norm Sondak and Ray Scott. It's hard to separate them this many years later. Both set a standard for excellence and integrity that reinforced what I already brought to WPI from my parents and prior education." -- '76
"Prof. Joseph Soetens was my primary advisor and my MQP advisor. Since I was one of the few who chose "commercial applications" as my focus, Prof. Soetens was a great advisor. I remember sitting in his office during office hours reviewing my progress on my MQP when he got a call from a former student (Peter Hallock) who was asking about possible summer hires for the place he was working. He put the phone aside and immediately asked if I was interested. I said I was. And that turned into my first programming job! And I ended up working with Peter and the company he worked for as my first full-time programming job after I graduated." -- '79
"Norman Sondak, Leonard Lipner" -- '77