reading 00

Is Computer Science an art, engineering, or science discipline? Explain your thoughts and the implications of your assessment.

This post is slightly late (due to my late enrollment in the course). I’ve had the benefit of being part of the in-class discussion for this specific blog post, but it really started this idea in my head that wasn’t discussed in class. As to whether Computer Science is an art, engineering, or science, I see it as a bit of all three.

I want to focus on the idea of STEM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. This is  a focus of education into a very technical area. These four areas are closely intertwined, and someone hoping to find a career in any of these four fields should have at least some understanding of the other three (which I think most people do). But the question here isn’t just about if Computer Science is an engineering or science, but also if it can be considered art. And so obviously I’ll bring up STEAM, where the additional A actually refers to art.

So STEM/STEAM seem to encompass them all, and they’re grouped together because they overlap in a lot of ways. I would be inclined to put computer science in the technology category, so not engineering, science, or art, though it overlaps with these thee. An understanding of engineering to know what the purpose of the code is and what it physically does, an understanding of math for algorithms and logic, and an understanding of art so that the code is creative, enjoyable, and an individual expression of one’s interests

I think the article where software is compared to bridges is very interesting and, along with what Paul Graham says in “Hacker” tends to push Computer Science as an art for rather than a type of engineering or science. From what we discussed in class about this topic, and something I found interesting, is that scientists (and engineers for that matter) work on problem sets and learn things that someone else has already discovered, while a computer scientist (or hacker) is constantly discovering new things, writing code in their own terms and language, to me, making it seem much more like an art—an expression of creativity and individuality. So if we look at it that way, Computer Science is an art.

Yet as computer programming has developed more and more, it has started to fit more this mold that science and engineering follow—someone has done a lot of the preliminary research to get where were are today, and so people are trying to build off those initial ideas. I think that computer programming is starting to reach such a plateau. Most code is started off of something that someone already wrote, that someone else came along and edited (or even something that was initially intended for another purpose). As an Electrical Engineer, it has been a while since I’ve done much coding, but even from what I did, rarely did I ever start a program from scratch. I either had someone guiding me on my first few projects, and then the rest of my projects, I used code from other programs I’d written. I think the idea that computer scientists are constantly coming up with new code is not necessarily true. In the same way that engineers and scientists aren’t always creating new things, but working off what someone before them has done.

 

reading 01

Does the computing industry have an obligation to address social and political issues such as income inequality? How well suited is it to meet such challenges? How does the ethos of the computing industry influence its take on “fixing” social, economic, and political problems? Can tech save the world?

This issue is an interesting one to me. I don’t think that the computing industry should bear the entire burden of social and political issues at all—this is something that needs to be fixed on a global scale, if any fixing is expected to happen. In my mind, the computing industry is one with the largest instances of inequality because you have people like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Steve Ballmer who are some of the worlds richest people, and yet there are people in some third world countries who have very limited access to technology (where here I am fretting over the fact that I don’t have wifi access). So yes, the computing industry has an obligation to address the issues in its industry at the very least. And if you look at the Gates Foundation, (How the Gates Foundation Reflects the Good and the Bad of “Hacker Philanthropy”) you can see that they have been making strong efforts to do that by drastically changing the amount of diseases affecting nations around the world. But there is still definitely a gap.

How well is it suited to meet such challenges? Well obviously the computing industry cannot solve world hunger and it cannot fix all the worlds problems, but there are definitely issues that it can make strong efforts to fix—like making technology more widely available. Going back to the idea of underdeveloped countries, providing students with laptops and the resources to expand their knowledge to the information available to them on the Internet can provide them with an opportunity to receive higher education and push themselves to go farther than they ever expected to go, due to their socio-economic situation.

Even looking on a smaller scale, at the issue of Too Few Women In Tech, this is still definitely within the bounds of the computing industry to fix. Addressing this issues that this article brings up about it not being men’s fault that there is a gender gap in the technology industry—there definitely is—but it isn’t necessarily the men’s fault. It is true that women aren’t generally known to go as far as men in their careers because women are generally seen as mothers, and so taking the time to have a family distracts from their career. Also, women aren’t seen as ruthless and cold-hearted because they have a nurturing aspect to their character (which makes them good as mothers!). But this issue goes back farther in my mind to the elementary school level, where for a while girls have not been as encouraged to study in STEM fields. And great strides have been made to change this (which I find extremely exciting) but it still is going to take some time for these efforts to take root and make their way to the strong startups and entrepreneurs that are so vital to the industry. As a female, I do notice the difference, but I don’t think that any issues are going to change on a higher level, so the effort must be made in terms of younger girls, and then maybe after a few decades we’ll see a trend of more dominant females, rivaling the number of males.

How does the ethos of the computing industry influence its take on “fixing” social, economic, and political problems? The first moral imperative in the codes of ethics is: “Contribute to society and human well-being.” If society is unequal, then there is an obligation to change it so as to make the world a better place. Simple as that.

Can tech save the world? Definitely. The money made by tech moguls can go to foundations and causes that need it—again, the Gates Foundation is an example. But also the access to knowledge that comes with technology is key. Tech can make the world easier and more accessible to everyone. People who cannot speak due to handicaps have learned to use technology to be their voice; watches have been made to alert a doctor when someone is having an epileptic seizure; technology is used in testing vehicles before people are allowed to drive in them; and the list of helpful technology only continues (but I don’t have enough words to write about them).

I found this quote from The Refragmentation very interesting: “We take for granted the forms of fragmentation we like, and worry only about the ones we don’t.” I think it summarizes well what my entire argument is—there are definitely some issues that I find more worrisome about the efforts the computing industry is facing, and the rest, that I do not find as distressing, I tend to sweep under the rug more. Just some food for thought.

 

 

about me

Hi! I’m Sarah, a junior Electrical Engineer. I’ve always loved reading, but I also love watching movies, most specifically romantic comedies. BuzzFeed has a list of 200 romantic comedies (How Many Romantic Comedies Have You Seen?) and it is a goal of mine to see all of them. I’m at 140 currently.

I decided to study Electrical Engineering because of my dad. He was an EE at Notre Dame too. (I do in fact epitomize a legacy kid, my dad went here, I live in the suburbs of Chicago, and have always attended Catholic school.) When I was in grade school, I got a Snap-Circuits kit for Christmas, and it was one of the best gifts I ever received. I spent hours building the different circuits, and learning how I could build such complex designs from these fundamental pieces. In class last Thursday, someone brought up a transistor, and how as a Computer Science major, he wasn’t expected to know what a transistor did, but the reason why I’m studying Electrical Engineering is because I’m really excited about the transistors and microcontrollers and circuits behind the programming.

I’m taking Ethics and Professional Issues on an initial recommendation from a friend, but after attending just one class, I’m hooked. Obviously I’ve been in philosophy classes where I am expected to debate and contribute my ideas on moral dilemmas, and even theology classes where I am asked to fight for my faith, but this is the first engineering class that I’ve been in that is discussion based. And I find it extremely engaging and important. I find the issues that we’re discussing extremely relevant to society. Personally, I find the technical information of my degree extremely important, but I also think that college is an important time to grow as a person too. I see this class as a chance to debate the issues that I see in the news, but I don’t ever take the time to think about in terms of myself, and what I study.

I’m particularly interested in the issues about getting young girls involved in engineering. I knew about engineering because I had someone at home teaching me about it, but I want girls to see engineering and programming as a plausible and achievable profession. I believe that women have very different opinions and views on things than men and can bring a different light to the way that products are designed and code is written. A brief anecdote, but at a SWE conference, we had a woman who worked for General Mills talk to us about a marketing strategy for Cheerios and Pampers leading to a “Bright morning.” The men didn’t see the two going together well, all they could think was food and diapers together is not appetizing, but as a mother, the woman understood how easily the two went together, and made life easier for a hectic mom. It was something like this that makes me want to encourage younger girls to get involved in coding and see the beauty in engineering, and that they can make an impact in it.