Project 2: Interview guide

We decided to delve into the project that is the job interview process guide. You can find our project posted here. We took a simplistic approach that walked us first through what should be done year by year. Then we looked more closely at different scenarios like preparation, outreach and interview tactics.

I am glad that we picked this topic because I ended up learning a lot. As a junior, I have only committed to a summer internship, not a full-time job. Even just with the discussions we’ve had in class, I wish that I had discussed this more before even entering the job process. This class is not even required for my major, but I think it should be taught even at the sophomore level. I am happy that I am getting to discuss these issues as a junior whereas most of the students in the class are seniors without the ability to act upon what we’ve learned until after they’ve fulfilled their contracts.

By doing this project, I learned a lot from my group-members who have been involved in the job interview process more extensively than I have. I was able to look back at my college career and think of things that I would have rather done, but also learn about tactics and skills that I can use in the future.

Something that I hadn’t really considered was the idea of looking for jobs in relation to location. I had been blindly applying to random jobs in random cities without really considering where it would be and how that would affect my life. Now I am not projected to go home to my house until next Thanksgiving. I think I just started to think about location when I started thinking about my full-time job, but I wish I had that as more of a criteria before. I don’t like that family members say goodbye to me and really don’t have any idea of knowing when the next time they are going to see me. I know picking jobs for summers aren’t that big of a deal, but picking summer locations far from home compiles with the fact that Notre Dame isn’t close to my home either. Now I haven’t lived at my home since I was in high school. Not that I would want to live at home after graduation, I just think it’s nice to be near people you love.

I think the one of the most important parts of the guide is the section on what people wished they knew before they started the job process. I think this section really highlights the humanity of the process and how everyone needs support through it. I feel like we all have been told about how to utilize the career center and how to prepare for an interview. I just don’t know if I ever knew why I was applying for jobs that I was and where I was looking on going with it.

I think something that I am now starting to realize is that I never really received great advice or guidance about the job interview process. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I never really sought it out. I don’t think I ever really understood how much of a process it was until really looking at it from a personal perspective, not just as a means to get a job. I think its important to differentiate a job from a career.

I know college traditionally has been viewed as a place of learning, not a job training or a job interview boot camp. I don’t think that colleges should change to accommodate the interview process, but I do think that colleges could alter what they teach in their place of learning to better apply to the workforce.

Especially with a computer science or engineering degree, it is really important that we continue to learn things that will be relevant to the workforce and the current technology that is being used. I understand that there is a learning curve and that we must start on more simple systems, but I think the direction we take as we move to more advanced fields could be directed by industry.

Either way, I don’t think college should be some sort of “prep” academy. I think its better to invest in an education you find is worthy, and then find people who think your skills will add to their team. Eventually, if we keep switching to this “prep” attitude I feel like we will never go into depth into our own interests and eventually learn less and less.

 

 

Post 7: Whistleblowing

The idea of “Whistleblowers” and what the motivations and consequences of them are, is a very difficult topic to discern on an ethical level. I did not know much about this topic going in, and started by reading the article, “Computer security faults put Boeing at risk”. There I saw how difficult it was for companies to deal with new laws and misconceptions in the execution of computer security. It says,

The federal guidelines for computer controls are unclear, and where the law is murky, auditors and company officials are left to fill in the gaps — facing criminal penalties if they are wrong. Companies are hungry for clarification on how to handle the information technology portion of Sarbanes-Oxley, according to The Institute of Internal Auditors, a leading professional association.

This leads me to understand why it is so difficult to get organized under a new set of criteria. It’s hard because it is so easy to villainize either the company or the person who did the whistleblowing. It continues to mention that,

“There’s no bright lines,” said Tootle, who asked not to be told which company the P-I was examining. “It’s judgment, judgment and more judgment.”

I think it is important to understand that there is no right and wrong side of this, but instead a gradient. With this gradient, there will always be the cases where innocent people get put at fault or guilty people get let go free. When you apply this over such a wide range of businesses–big and small–that is the ever-present danger.

With a company as big as Boeing, it would make sense that an employee was trying to get his/her voice heard when faced with some ethical dilemmas. The article, “Boeing Employee Fired for Discussing Computer Security Problems at Company”, said that the employee first tried to deal with the issue internally but was faced with backlash.

The fired employee says he was trying to save the companybut was treated badly after he raised ethical concerns internally about how the company was conducting security audits of its systems.

It is also evident that that company was not following protocol with the new Sarbanes-Oxley Act

 Boeing’s alleged security problems revealed that the company had failed repeatedly to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act — a law that requires companies to prove that they have internal control of their data to prevent anyone from manipulating financial numbers and deceiving stockholders.

Manipulating financial numbers, deceiving stockholders and fraud are something that are very important issues. Companies should all be held to an open and transparent standard, and I see why this Act is put in place. But I also see that from the Boeing side of the argument, they felt perpetrated by the employees who apparently used password-cracking tools.

In July this year, another Boeing whistleblower was charged with 16 counts of computer tresspass for allegedly stealing 320,000 company files and giving some of them to theSeattle Times to document flaws in the company’s inspection process for one of its new planes. Police say they discovered password-cracking tools on the employee’s computer. The company estimated that the stolen data could have cost the company between $5 billion and $15 billion if the information got into the wrong hands — presumably meaning the hands of competitors.

It’s a difficult topic because on one hand, it is very detrimental to the company to release stolen data. Having auditing issues does not seem to be the terms for having billions of dollars worth of data stolen. It also does not seem appropriate to have them brought to the media, not the government. This is touched upon in the article, “Court OKs Firing of Boeing Computer-Security Whistleblowers”, which analyzed the position the whistleblower was in.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court sided with Boeing, saying a provision in the act only protects those who notify the authorities, not the media, of alleged wrongdoing…

The law protects employees from discrimination if they deliver the information to a federal regulatory or law enforcement agency, a member or committee of Congress or or a work supervisor.

I definitely understand this. It is not healthy for a company to feel like any employee might just give away company and industry secrets if the company is having difficulty at the administration or financial level. I think it is more professional to notify the authorities, not the media. However, I do not know all the circumstances. If there was a great inhumane or inappropriate corporate incident that occurred and the authorities did not do anything, the only other avenue of seeking justice is to go to the media.

I know this is not always very clear, and we read that;

The court noted that another statute, the Whistleblower Protection Act, (.pdf) prohibits employer firings for leaks to the media. But it is unclear whether the alleged wrongdoing in the Boeing case constituted “gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to the public health or safety,” as the law requires.

I do not know enough about the Boeing case to see if they should have been protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act, but to me it seems that the Boeing case has a possibility to be considered a ‘gross mismanagement’ since it has been years trying to fix the issue. However, releasing sensitive data to the magnitude of billions of dollars does not seem comparable to this ‘gross mismanagement’ if it is to be considered such. At this point, I cannot conclude where I stand on this issue since there must be more information that I am missing before I can conclude a reasonable side to take.

Post 6: Diversity in the Tech Industry

I think that the lack of diversity in the tech industry is a problem without a doubt. The diversity statistics show that it is weaker than the national average and even compared to other countries. In the reading “Diversity Imbalance” it says that,

Sure, it’s obvious that there are biological differences between men and women, and there is evidence that there are differences in brain function between the sexes. But there is no evidence that indicates that the skills that make people better programmers are more common in men.

So it leads me to think that there is not some cognitive challenge that cannot be overcome in order to equally staff the workplace with both female and males. People have been trying to push the fact that women and men’s brains function differently for ages. Even if that is true, wouldn’t that be an advantage in the field of computer science where it is helpful to attack a problem in multiple different ways? The article also said:

Lack of diversity is itself a problem. Different people think differently, and consequently come up with different ways to solve problems. If you have a bunch of people with the same background, they miss lots of ideas – leading to inefficiencies and lack of innovation. A diverse group is usually more effective.

I think this imbalance is something that we will look back upon as being as stupid and incorrect as how the gender dynamic looked more than 50 years ago. Clearly, things always look a more obvious in retrospect, but I think we already have the retrospective ability to make a good judgement on the importance with diversity in the workplace. For example, it actually makes no sense that there is such a deficit of minorities in the tech field. That just reflects poorly on companies and the educational system in general for not providing ample opportunities. There is no innate reason that a minority would perform more poorly in a tech position than another person. The article continues to post that:

How can we say we are hiring the best people when we ignore significant chunks of our population. Critics of efforts to fix the diversity imbalance often fret that we risk failing to hire a well-qualified male, when we habitually fail to hire well-qualified females.

I think that quote describes the need for diversity well. You cannot hire the best workforce if you are only looking at a small portion of the population. I think it was my mom that said to me one time that the cure to cancer is probably sitting inside a mind of a child in a developing country that will never be educated.

In the same way, I think a lot of the corporate issues arise from educational issues and inequality. This problem cannot be isolated, and the U.S. has a lot to do before we will be anywhere close to the solution for diversity in the workplace.

Forbes posted about the importance of publicly posting the statistics on diversity. In the article “The Lack Of Diversity in Tech Is A Cultural Issue”, they explained it:

With the increased public awareness of the lack of diversity in technology and other STEM fields, companies will experience more pressure to disclose their statistics and be accountable for reaching diversity objectives. It is time for organizations to address their cultural bias and create initiatives to retain women and minorities. Addressing bias in workplace practices along with providing employees with the tools to survive and thrive in the workplace will have a positive impact on diversity.

People and companies just tend to be a little more moral when all their business is out in the open for the general population and especially clients to see. This idea was cemented by Google, who shown to be “shamed” into adding more women into the workplace. Even though being shamed into doing something isn’t necessarily the most gracious way to add diversity to the workplace, it is still effective. In the article “Google finally discloses its diversity record, and it’s not good”, it confirmed the hypothesis that public information helped the issue of diversity:

 

“I think this will put pressure on other companies to release their gender data — which is good because it will lead to change,” Wadhwa said. “Look at all the companies that are now adding women to their boards because they were shamed into it.Things are changing. Silicon Valley can be arrogant and insular, but at the end of the day, it does listen.”

 

 

I think women and minorities face a lot of obstacles in the tech industry even further than actually just not getting what they need. In a lot of start-ups and just tech companies in general, there is some monopoly on the culture and that is majorly being dominated by white males. I read that there is a certain “bro-culture” that women and minorities are simply excluded from. I think with a better culture in the company, more change and progress can be made from there. That may start from a top down method or a bottom up method.

After looking at Silicon Valley’s plan to become more diverse, it appears that they are just going to throw money at the problem and hope that it gets fixed. Sure, it is better to be allocating funds to be fixing the immediate problems at hand, but saying you are putting $130 million dollars to the cause says nothing about how you can fix a company culture that does not lend to women and minorities. I hope that companies can do more and provide more of a plan about how they will combat issues of diversity other than just putting a dollar value to it.

Post 5: Work-Life Balance

 

To begin, I don’t think anyone can have it all. It is impossible to go through life without sacrifices and disappointing circumstances that need to be overcome. That being said, I think there are a lot of ways that parents suffer because of a workplace that will not tend to their needs as a human and a unit in a family.

I think in a traditional workplace, men have the issue of spending too much time working and not enough time with their family. This is illustrated by “The Work-Family Imbalance” article:

According to Pew, 46 percent of fathers say they’re not spending enough time with their children, compared with 23 percent of mothers. Fathers devote significantly less time than mothers to child care (an average of seven hours per week for fathers, compared with 14 for mothers). Among mothers, 68 percent say they spend the right amount of time with their children. Only half of fathers say the same.

In a lot of ways men, especially men in highly important and demanding work positions, do not adequately ever separate themselves from their office. I think this is traditionally a problem that is uniquely for men because women aren’t even privileged enough to be put in that situation. The husband of Anne-Marie Slaughter writes in his piece “Why I Put My Wife’s Career First”:

Researchers refer to the gap between male and female wages and seniority as the “motherhood penalty,” because it is almost entirely explained by the lower earnings and status of women with children. Despite their superior performance in college, surprisingly few women reach the pinnacles of professional success: They account for only 21 percent of surgeons, 20 percent of law-firm partners, and 9 percent of equity-fund managers.

I think this is a strong support of how gender inequality effects the family life and especially women with children. Women, simply, are not yet in the position to balance home life and a life of a career. I do not mean that women cannot work, that is clearly not true, I mean that women cannot pursue a demanding career in the sense that they can chase after their goals and dreams.

Anne-Marie Slaughter writes in “Why Women Still Cant Have It All”:

I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured. My experiences over the past three years have forced me to confront a number of uncomfortable facts that need to be widely acknowledged—and quickly changed.

And later follows up with:

In short, the minute I found myself in a job that is typical for the vast majority of working women (and men), working long hours on someone else’s schedule, I could no longer be both the parent and the professional I wanted to be—at least not with a child experiencing a rocky adolescence. I realized what should have perhaps been obvious: having it all, at least for me, depended almost entirely on what type of job I had. The flip side is the harder truth: having it all was not possible in many types of jobs, including high government office—at least not for very long.

In this way, I see that women cannot fully “have it all” in the sense as the opportunity to have what most men have in the workplace. Even though I don’t think men “have it all” either, I think they have a much higher opportunity to manage the work-life balance themselves. After reading “Silicon Valley’s Best and Worst Jobs for New Moms (and Dads)”, I am so shocked that the US is only one of four countries in the world that does not guarantee the right to paid maternity leave. I am surprised that I didn’t know that before and now after knowing it, think that it is vital that that changes before the workplace can even start to become equal.

I was especially concerned with the NYT articles that gave specific examples of companies and situations that are incredibly horrifying. To me, the work-life balance is extremely important. I think that the human element should never be forgotten in the workplace. However, I don’t think companies are specifically the people who are supposed to create it for you. To me this seems childish. But I do think companies should be required to provide the bare minimums for a work-life balance. I plan on maintaining a work-life balance by keeping in mind what is important to me and seeing that I have enough time to spend with friends and being healthy. I know a work-life balance becomes increasingly more difficult with age so I think it is important that I understand the groundworks when I start my first job to get on the right track.

 

 

Project 1: Reflection on Portrait & Manifesto

We tried a something a little different since half of our group members are EE’s and half of our group members are in CSE. We wanted to write the Portrait and the Manifesto for both of our areas of studies and then have them dialogue with each other on the same page. I think it is interesting to see what similarities and differences arise from the two, and how it shows more about each Manifesto/Portrait because you can contrast the two. You can find the link to our project here.

I only plan to reflect on the EE half of the Portrait and Manifesto since they are what I can most easily attribute to my time at ND. It does not make sense to see if I fit a Manifesto/Portrait that doesn’t even encompass me as a student. I will reflect to the questions below:

• How much does the Manifesto reflect your individual feelings and thoughts? Is it a warcry? What is it?

I really do not think this Manifesto actually reflects my individual feelings and thoughts. First of all it is written in a male perspective, and I am female. I do not struggle socially and I have a lot of other interests outside of being that squeaky-clean engineer that wants to be so smart and create so much that they rule the world one day. I think it really is a warcry against the kids that they feel oppressed by or looked down upon. Its something that screams against the oppression this “typical engineer” might face.

• How much do you identify with the Portrait? Where do you differ?

I think the portrait fits me better because it was made to be tailored to the group of Notre Dame EEs, which I clearly fall under. It encompasses most of us, but it is also still pretty broad. I don’t feel like I was inaccurately described, but I also don’t feel like I was accurately described either. I feel like I could fall under this random bracket of engineers, but if one of my friends picked this Portrait off of the street they would absolutely never pick me as a person that this Portrait describes. Because of this, I cannot see myself identifying with this Portrait.

• How significant are stereotypes to how you view the world and how the world views you? Do you think the presence of a Manifesto or Portrait is helpful or harmful?

I care about different stereotypes for different things. I think issues like people stereotyping me for being a female more frustrating and significant than the issue of people stereotyping me as an engineer. I guess I don’t really mind people stereotyping me for something I chose, because I can just choose to be different from that stereotype. However, things that are innate to who I am that I did not choose, like my gender, I find more impactful on how the world views me.

I don’t really think its a good idea to ever write a Manifesto or Portrait for a group of people. I think it would be fine to write one for just yourself, but any time you write something that is descriptive and general for a population, you will always leave out at least one or a few people. In the end, writing a Manifesto or Portrait for a group is more harmful than helpful; this will leave people out, make a group feel left out or just change a publics opinion about a group that not all the individuals in the group agree with. I do think writing a Manifesto of Portrait for oneself could be helpful though. It could give purpose and a voice to someone that wants to be heard or could give more focus and purpose to an individual.

Post 4: Mobility and Company Loyalty

I don’t know if I can answer the question on my personal mobility with regards to companies. I never thought of switching companies as an employment strategy or a means to getting a salary raise. I always approach the hiring and career path as trying to find a job, seeing how you like it and possibly switching if you find that the company you are working for is not a good fit. I don’t see switching companies as a way to get a better pay, I am looking for a job at a company that I find is valuable and fulfills me.

I think that these articles leave my thoughts at the uncomfortable extremes; extremes where you must constantly be switching companies or where you can’t because of non-compete agreements. I think non-compete companies are very undesirable and often times crippling for employees since it does not allow mobility between jobs.

In the article about how companies kill their employees job searches it says:

Now Congress is about to go further, giving employers new powers to sue employees under federal law. But many economists and legal scholars are against it, armed with ample evidence showing that such a law would reduce innovation and an employee’s incentive to learn.

Which poses a huge threat to employees who are looking for new jobs. The article then continues on and gives examples of people who were not able to take new jobs or had to have months off that were unpaid because of these agreements. I see how this can be crippling for those that are genuinely looking for a new job or need a new job.

I also see why it is important to retain employees. If all employees just left after a few years, then there would be no consistency in the company and the prices for training and headhunting would add up tremendously. I think the article about Employees who stay that learn 50% less actually make a good point on why you should stay.

Brendan Burke, Director at Headwaters HW +0.00% MB, strongly disagrees with the “up-and-out culture.”  He explains that “companies turn over great employees because they’re not organizationally strong enough to support rapid development within their ranks. In many cases, that is a recipe for discontinuity in service and product offerings as well as disloyalty in the ranks. As such, we take the opposite approach. Rather than force folks out after 24 months, we try to retain our junior and mid-level staff and develop them within the ranks.”

Yes, I understand that you will make more money if you move around companies a lot, but the issue I am debating is whether or not that is ethical. After all, there are a lot of things that give you a fat paycheck that aren’t exactly ethical. I see this divide between company loyalty and self improvement as moral divide between what should come first; you or the company. If a company has to be constantly hiring new people at higher salaries, will that company survive? Either way, should that be more important to you than your overall salary or supposed skills?

I don’t necessarily know the answer to all of my questions. I just know that I see how it is valuable to switch companies often, but I don’t completely see it as moral. I see it as self-motivated. I know that Silicon Valley has really flourished from this “up-and-out culture” but I wonder how that effects the ethos of the employees involved in that way. I do not intend to sway either for or against the current state of mobility, I am just wondering how this trend will change and have different effects in the near and far future.

Post 3: What is a hacker?

I really liked the first article, The Conscience of a Hacker, that we read because it was truthful and poetic. I think a lot of times teenagers and young adults get shut down and not academically challenged if they have interests outside of the traditional math, science, english and history disciplines. It goes back to the idea that the hacking field is not something with a lot of qualified educators in it. Because of that, I think hackers are misunderstood. There is a misconception that hacking isn’t academic or educational, when in fact it is key in the development of a well-experienced programmer.

The second article, Hackers and Painters, helped me understand the distinction between hackers and the other disciplines such as art. It showed me that hackers and painters are similar that they are creative and expressive. It shows how it really cannot be grouped into something like computer science or engineering. Really, a lot of math is actually really irrelevant to hackers as said below:

If hackers identified with other makers, like writers and painters, they wouldn’t feel tempted to do this. Writers and painters don’t suffer from math envy. They feel as if they’re doing something completely unrelated. So are hackers, I think.

If Notre Dame really wanted to explore further into the field, they would completely take the computer science major out of the college of engineering and make a computer based school within the university. That way, people could learn more purposefully and focused material such as having majors like hacking, software development, etc.

I was also amazed by the hacking mindset on how you can start off by being original and creative. With traditional science and engineering, it is more likely that we are repeating previous experiments and memorizing known discoveries and phenomenon. With hacking, it is a more comprehensive learning where it actually develops a students creative and problem solving skills. I liked how they word it below:

The fact that hackers learn to hack by doing it is another sign of how different hacking is from the sciences. Scientists don’t learn science by doing it, but by doing labs and problem sets. Scientists start out doing work that’s perfect, in the sense that they’re just trying to reproduce work someone else has already done for them. Eventually, they get to the point where they can do original work. Whereas hackers, from the start, are doing original work; it’s just very bad. So hackers start original, and get good, and scientists start good, and get original.

The hacker archetype is interesting because it can take a lot of different forms. It was said in How yuppies hacked the original hacker ethos:

I was attracted to the hacker archetype because, unlike the straightforward activist who defines himself in direct opposition to existing systems, hackers work obliquely. The hacker is ambiguous, specialising in deviance from established boundaries, including ideological battle lines. It’s a trickster spirit, subversive and hard to pin down. And, arguably, rather than aiming towards some specific reformist end, the hacker spirit is a ‘way of being’, an attitude towards the world.

I think that this is a good example of how being a hacker is a way of thought and a way of being, not necessarily a profession or a job to get a quick rise to the top in Silicon Valley. I look at it more as a spirit of discovery and getting through or around difficult challenges.

Something that I definitely see is that being a hacker is not conventional and in that way, very much a proponent of counterculture. A lot of hackers are similar in that they do not follow the mainstream, but I did not like A Portrait of J. Random Hacker because it suggested that only these people could be hackers and that every hacker is the same. I have a hard time believing that all hackers prefer cats over dogs and that they don’t play any sports unless its friendly. I agree that there is a large stereotype that hackers fit this profile, but there are many people that I consider hackers that do not fit this profile whatsoever. I understand that it is written satirically with the intention of truthful undertones so I see why it is written, but would like to challenge it as the complete profile of a hacker. I definitely do not identify with these attributes but I also don’t identify myself as a hacker. So I can’t personally comment on the validity of the statements and archetype. I think if I considered myself more skilled in computer science I would be discouraged at this idea of a hacker since I would not fall into it very well. I think also the hacker archetype leans heavily towards the male end and did not appreciate the idea that ‘female hackers wear nearly no visible makeup or none at all.’ I don’t think female hackers should just be assumed to fit this criteria because already it seems undesirable and makes me not want to consider myself a hacker.

Post 2.1: Is programming a super-power? Why or why not? What are the implications if it is?

After reading the new articles for this week, I only now realized that the blog posts are required to be 500-1000. Stupidly, my eyes skipped over the only bolded words in the prompt so I will supplement my post from last week by adding another response in attempt to fix my accidental underachievement.

I was intrigued by the videos and conversations in class that surrounded the idea of whether or not programming is a super-power. I was surprised how many people had opposition to the idea that it is a super power, since anyone can learn it. People generally agreed that it had great responsibility and great power, but it was not a super-power. I would have to beg to differ on that statement because I believe just because anyone can learn it, it doesn’t detract from the qualification of a super-power. I think pop-culture has a mix of what super powers are, and with Iron Man, we can see that not all super-powers are God-given but instead learned and judged based on the magnitude of the impact.

I think programming is a super-power because anyone who has this skill can make a very far-fetching and immediate impact on the world. I think this is different than other learned or innate skills since being bilingual or a hardware wiz or a talented poet could not as rapidly create as much change as a programmer can. Programmers have direct connections to every market and social aspect of life. You can take Uber for example; programming is the super-power that enabled the complete and far-spread shift in the transportation industry.

Obviously, since I am considering programming as a super-power, I think there are a lot of implications from this. All super-heros have a very strong and important place in society. Being a super-hero is having a civic duty to keep people safe from villains. In that way, I believe programmers have a strong civic duty to do the right thing with their programming skills and even further than that, not to just do something neutral. I think programmers must use their own unique super powers in order to work on something to better society.

I know there are many different opinions on this, and it is difficult to say since I am not actually a programmer myself. Instead I look at my electrical engineering skills with similar motivations; to look upon my work with the intention for it to go to good. I think the difference between what programmers do, and what I do is the fact that any programmer can have an extreme and immediate impact on others based off of that work. I also think working as an electrical engineer is equally valuable but it is really not anyone who has the access and ability to make the same magnitude and depth of impact as a programmer can. In that way, I really believe that being a programmer leaves a larger margin of ‘evil’ that a programmer or a computer scientist might easily fall into. I think this understanding is even reflected in our course requirements to get a degree from Notre Dame. As an electrical engineer I am not required to take this class, instead I am taking it for my technical elective since I think having relevant ethical discussion is fundamental to what I personally consider a college education. I know this is a mandatory class for computer science majors since there is more opportunity and availability for a computer science major who graduates from Notre Dame to fall into ‘the dark side.’ That is why I think that programming is distinctly different from other skills and talents since it has more of the availability to use the powers for bad.

Post 2: Why Study Ethics in Computer Science/Engineering

There are many reasons why it is important to study ethics in computer science and engineering. Taking the Parable of Talents, it shows us that God gives gifts with the intention of service. So when God had given the servants all the large sums of money, he was unpleased when the servant did nothing with it but bury it. What I take away from that is that, with all great gifts, they must be used wisely and toward a good cause. That is why ethics is important to study in Computer Science/Engineering. Both these disciplines have major impacts on the modern world today. If a computer scientist only uses the gift for him or herself, then the gift is squandered.

Also, Computer Science and Engineering is very far-reaching in our world today. As seen in the article “Why Software is Eating the World,” new software and technology literally breaches every single aspect of industry today. Whether it is Amazon taking away the need for bookstores, or online shopping taking away the need for department stores, software is changing the landscape of our economy. It is important to study ethics to understand what implications certain computer science of engineering advancements could have on other people, industries and economies.

Post 1: Short Introduction

 My name is Annie Conover, and I am a junior Electrical Engineering major. I am interested in international development and social/environmental concerns especially in regards to solar photovoltaics and electric/hybrid vehicle systems. I spent the past summer in Uganda and the past semester in Ireland so I am newly returning to the States now. Last year I took a course on Technology, Society and Ethics which I really enjoyed so I thought that this course would build upon the topics I learned in that class.

In my opinion, the most pressing current ethical issue facing computer scientists is the issue of surveillance and data mining. I think there are a lot of other issues that will become very pressing shortly, but right now I think that there must be more effort put towards the issue of privacy.