Before I make my point about how geeks study hard and play often, let’s look at ‘who is a geek.” Generally speaking, a geek is someone who is fascinated by computers and passionate about technology. But there are other kinds of geeks – botany geeks, philosophy geeks, design geeks, music geeks.

But the term geek is most often associated with computing scientists. We still have the traditional perception of them as being accomplished people in scientific and technical pursuits, but socially inept. So they are accomplished in science and technology – constantly thinking of writing good code, debugging systems, discovering new and creative ways of making things easier and more accessible to use – but socially inept…really?

Geoff Peters is a professional jazz pianist who loves music and spends all the time he can spare pursuing that. He has designed a website where you can find a song by simply tapping the tune on the space bar of the keyboard (www.songtapper.com).

Oliver Rio Kuederle, a singer and musician of the European Rivo Drei band loves computing science. He believes computing science involves rational and logical thinking and that is important in any field to attain success.

What do these two people have in common? Apart from music, they both graduated from the School of Computing Science, SFU. They are either working full time in the computer software industry or have done so in the past with plans to make a comeback in the future.

Another “geek” I know of is Pouya Alagheband. Pouya came to Simon Fraser University in 2005 with a Mathematics degree from Iran. His passion for computing science led him to land two NSERC Undergraduate research awards with distinguished professors, Dr. Richard Vaughan and Dr. Mohamed Hefeeda in Artificial Intelligence and Networking Systems respectively.

Aside from pursuing his academic passions, Pouya pursues his creative interests in cinema and music by volunteering at Pacific Cinematheque. He works as a barista at the Boulevard Coffee Shop and is a journalist with Radio Zamaneh, a Persian online radio site based in the Netherlands. In addition, he serves as President of the SFU Iranian Club. On the club, Pouya organizes social events and discussion groups to promote Persian culture. He is also acting in a musical play based on a Persian heroic poem called ‘Arash-e-Kamangir.’

When asked what motivates him to pursue such a wide variety of activities, Pouya says, “I am a person who loves learning.” If there is something new that interests him, he is motivated to learn more and go in to the depths of it. He feels it’s important for him to know “who I am.”

Like Pouya, Geoff and Oliver, most computing science students at SFU pursue other creative interests like photography, music, art, sports and love partying. They feel it’s important to balance work with play. As they themselves say, “study hard, play often.” That’s the motto of geeks!