Yes, I watched American TV when I was growing up, and yes I saw as part of the vaunted NBC Thursday night lineup the sitcom Family Ties. The Family Ties cast included Justine Bateman, the older sister of still-acting Jason Bateman (who is forever seared in my memory as the co-star of the long-forgotten sitcom It's Your Move, but never mind). Justine Bateman has had a multifaceted career as an actor on many TV series, plus she wrote a book about Fame, and directed a feature film. And to top it all off, Justine decided in her late 40s to pursue an undergraduate degree at UCLA in computer science; she was under contract during her time on Family Ties and disallowed during those years from attending college.

Justine chronicled her time as a student on the website Tumblr, and I followed her posts. Near the end of her studies, she invited her Tumblr readers to submit their own college stories to share her Tumblr account. I took up the offer and wrote up a story to share which I submitted, and to my suprise and delight on May 12, 2016, Justine wrote back:

Thanks, Mitchell. Shall I post this with your name or anonymously? Also, do you have a picture I could post with this? It can be of anything: you, your dog, your school, etc. Justine

On May 15, 2016, I replied:

Hi, Justine.

You may post this with my name.

I'm attaching a copy of a picture of myself which you may use for the post.

Thanks. -- Mitchell

Later that day, the post went online which I duplicate here for posterity.

When I first attended college, I thought that I was going to major in computer science. I took an introductory computer science class where we learned Pascal; I finished the course and did very well in it. The next year, I took a more advanced computer programming course where we worked in C. I did well in that too until about midway through the course when we had an assignment to write a program that would play the game Connect Four. I struggled with the assignment and struggled to translate the homework requirements into code. Rather than press on, I was afraid that I would do so poorly in the assignment and hence in the class that I dropped out of the class entirely and even dropped my major. I switched majors to anthropology and then to linguistics, getting a dual degree in linguistics and anthropology.

I was lucky enough to get into graduate school in linguistics, but I didn't score high enough on my qualifying exams, and was shown the door after I got a master's degree. When I searched for a job, I found myself gravitating toward (wait for it!) computer programming jobs, but was hard pressed to get such a job without a computer degree or with much of a background. After months of searching, I got a job where my relatively meager computers skills were sufficient to get hired. After more than a year on the job, I got promoted to a developer position, and returned to graduate school; this time I went after a master's degree in computer science. I have now worked professionally as a software developer/engineer for 16 years.

In retrospect, I'm glad I took the detour in college that I did. It has been more than invaluable to have something else in my intellectual arsenal. And linguistics has been particularly valuable in this regard; natural language processing is hot shit in computer circles, and one that I'm in a rarefied position to exploit.

And I'm content to leave it at that. Yes, I know that eight years after that, when Donald Trump got re-elected, Justine Bateman said she was ecstatic about that and said so publicly and became a favorite on right-wing media interviews and commentary. (I decline to link to Justine's exact commentary; I don't want to give any more attention to such reprehensible drivel. For those interested, I leave searching for such ballyhoo as an exercise to the reader.)

I could belabor the issue and try to understand what happened. Maybe she was always like this; maybe she changed at some point. Heck, she might even have changed her mind again considering the mess that the current administration has so far engendered. Or I can deem it a slight touch with fame, and a story to share at a party or something.

• media
• programming
• television

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