The first seminar of the PTP program was a presentation by instructor Bryce Lane, a charismatic speaker who stressed the importance of getting students engaged and excited about the courses they are taking. Getting students engaged can take several forms, such as showing examples of how the course content applies in the world outside of the university. One of the easiest classes to make this clear in computer science is the lecture on cybersecurity. My Master's reseach was in cybersecurity, so this is a topic that I have particular expertise in.
One of my favorite parts about the security lecture is that there is almost always some major security incident happening in the news right around the time of the lecture. This semester, the heartbleed bug was revealed within about a week of the lecture starting, so I made it a point to bring it up in class as well as the other major security incidents that have surfaced in recent memory. The most interesting thing about most security problems is that they often come from the same rookie mistakes that I cover in my lectures, meaning that students are able to see a side of the incidents that general public doesn't, which lends itself well to the hands-on "hacking" exercises we do in class after covering the materials.
I love the security lecture because its often the only one where students have to question their assumptions and what they take for granted about their subject matter. Oftentimes the behavior of a computer is inconsistent with the things they learn in school, and a failure to recognize that behavior can have disastrous consequences. It gives students an opportunity to critically reflect on everything they've learned in the semester and how much they still need to learn before they are experts in the system.