Alexander “Sandy” Astin was a longtime professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, best known for creating an annual survey of college freshmen. Astin, who passed away this past May at the age of 89, first developed “The American Freshman” survey at the American Council for Education in 1969. He continued the project after joining the UCLA faculty.

Gary Kildall referenced Astin’s 1985 survey in a March 1986 Computer Chronicles episode on “Careers in Computing.” Notably, Astin’s survey of the previous fall’s freshman class found that only 4.4 percent of respondents “aspired to careers as computer programmers or computer analysts, down from 8.8 percent in 1983,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Astin suggested the decrease may have actually been the result of greater exposure to computers by the 1985 freshmen, as they realized computers could be useful in fields other than tech. He further speculated that students “may be misinterpreting the recent, well publicized troubles in the computer industry.”