I think the college prerequisites system needs to be rethought. Today in class, I was discussing various types of behavior that are classified as exhibiting human intelligence, and after suggesting “guessing”, mentioned the relevant scene at the end of Star Trek IV: The One With The Whales. There wasn’t a single student in the room who had seen it. I commented to them that a more useful pre-req for my class than Psych. 101 might be Amanda’s Pop Culture 101 – a common lexicon of science fiction movies and television would be a good base for class discussion.
Glimpses of the websurfing habits of a computer science professor, obsessive crafter, occasional gamer, and all around geek
I guess the “Star Wars” films have replaced the “Star Trek” phenom in current popular culture? I’m shocked that not one of your students had seen that Star Trek movie. It was my favorite of the Star Trek flicks. Now, I never got into the original Star Trek series, but I at least “knew” enough about it to participate in a discussion.