The following material (in slightly altered form) was accepted for publication
and will appear in SIGCSE ’06. The work described therein came about
as a direct reaction to what I believe are significant deficiencies in the pre-
vailing mentality of what constitutes the “right” way to go about teaching
undergraduate courses in computer graphics. In particular, despite recent
technological advancements that have fundamentally altered the graphical
landscape in both academia and industry, many instructors persist in bas-
ing their classes on antiquated techniques that inhibit student learning and
squander the unparalleled opportunity graphics courses present to get stu-
dents excited about the science of computing.
The introductory graphics course I took at the University of Illinois was,
in many ways, one of the best of experiences of my college career. The ma-
terial was fascinating and diverse, the presentation motivated many math-
ematical concepts I had previously been forced to blindly memorize, and
the assigned course projects were of sufficient scope that their completion
instilled a significant sense of pride. For me, like many computer science stu-
dents, graphics was the first course in which I was expected to produce an
application that did more than just process a text file or compute a number.
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