Outline for Today
Honouring Prior Contributions
{"desc"=>"Happy Thursday"}
{"desc"=>"Learning computer science was hard. Unlearning computer science is harder. (Master's thesis)", "url"=>"https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~hhalma1/assets/documents/mat-wip.pdf"}
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Media
Transcript
Zoom Audio Transcript
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Good morning. Anyone notice the aurora borealis last night. What else. Our page here. Okay, so let's do our attendance. cynicism here today. So. If there's something going on in the chat. For me. So. This link to the document that I was. referencing yesterday. Look at I think there's some interesting. well. So maybe i'll just do a little dramatic reading from started Chapter two here. So anything, it may not be that dramatic but i'll try. So in 2006. I walked into my first computer science class at Simon fraser university, that was a few months before Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone. But my my classmates and, soon to be friends belief that digital robot technology is going to change the world and for the better, because already sacred. notions of boundless progress right on by the lakes unless hackers coders mostly young and middle class men with passions for computing filled our thoughts and conversations on problematically, that is, they ran questions and taking for granted. I felt destined for the road lifestyle.
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and
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Of the tech entrepreneur who finds not only wealth and prestige to code, but a deep sense of purpose of fulfillment. solution that with a technocratic dogma said and slowly over the years of my undergrad degree. The more I learned about computer science, the less I was ready to leave it was truly capable of solving the world's problems charging for graduating job placement for a dolphin life with software mega corp. For the pill some of the Silicon Valley veneer off my earlier fantasies of certain texts access and the allure of coding is a dream job be traded stuff for a bait and switch scheme on my second job as a developer, in the summer of 2014 this time for a rapidly growing startup. That summer I clocked a lot of unpaid over time. Which this company CEO indirectly justified by insisting that the online shopping experiences we were creating were actually a gift to humanity. But unpaid Labor was a Labor of love he argued by implication, we should be proud of the 510 sometimes even 20 extra hours you devoted each week to the happiness of online consumers. And i'll just read the last paragraph here from introduction that second chapter, it was no accident, I became and chatted with tech seemingly overnight and that event of years to break free of its spell in the study of how computer science students become computer scientists. samantha ressler and found that CS Education represents reality in ways and enable it to be managed and manipulated by computation, in other words. But those are skills and knowledge of computation CS education and her words initiate students into a Community endowed with the mystical power of programming computer science abstraction. turning them into computer programmers and scientists that often understand themselves as with his wizards proficient in the power of magic the power and magic reprogramming. And this starts the moment they walk into a classroom access yes class. Future as an audio book. Okay, so. i'm curious. Oh, that description. fits with your experiences. One thing I want to mention before I forget that to 30 Today is the last in the. LGBT Q to s. Plus. In stem seminar series so. Okay. So we have one vote for. using computers to solve problems. that's a powerful. motivator motivated yes. Well i'm paraphrasing a little bit here but. So the idea that we can use computers to solve problems. can be a powerful motivator for. The fact that we should. Consider. Our unpaid over time. As a gift to humanity, so people can. shop online or do something else online that. They were perfectly happy not doing before. This may be a stretch. So my feeling is. That maybe maybe things aren't quite as. For people who become a bit jaded perhaps I you tell me. So, before I came back to China, I worked for a startup for a year and beth. And that was that was 2000. And we have a office downtown. I did my PhD at Simon fraser and. This company had an office downtown. downtown Vancouver. I want to say how that's not that's right. And then we move to a. Different place which was on. Say that. I can picture the place. That was very much the time when. People were doing initial public offerings and. Getting. stock options and so on, so. I would say it was less than senses.
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doing the.
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writing a gift to humanity. Doing I like shopping but. The idea that. This is a exciting. Time to be involved in technology.
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and
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May, maybe. It was worth. The risk of. Putting in the extra time get some. Big rewards. unpaid Labor.
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It was.
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The possibility of personal rewards and doing something that was going to be. very, very big. anyone else, like to. make a comment to vote. studied computer science. So remember from the beginning of the semester we did I gave you. there's a code star video. From code org. and So the guy behind co.org. was a background and Microsoft had he partovi. He said, you know whether you want to make a lot of money or changed change the world baby I think that's the emphasis he had first was. First, was the mind. Respect mossville. So there. there's that aspect to it, then another woman, I don't remember her name. So she understood that software is about helping people. Yes. I like to actually program being able to do something and then see an outcome, and like see if something works like I like the feeling of accomplishment into that more than I had coming into the university like oh. I just liked the actual part of the work. Any comments on zoom. Creative aspects.
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A good.
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writer.
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For me, I was in a different field as well and that field like if you don't pursue higher education, you will not be able to get a like a decent job or like. A good paint job, while in computer science if I get the degree and I get like an internship, and so I can work like it wherever I want easily. Like, even if I have like basic knowledge or not a lot of experiences, I can still get jobs in computer science also like non computer science there's so many mega huge plenty of jobs that are on demand. and also the flexibility, like, for example, if i'm in saskatchewan I can actually get a job in USA and i'll still be like sitting in my room and doing my job. Without any issues, why like on different fields, for example, bio chemistry chemistry, you have to be in life, you have to relocate, you have to go. To a different location one computer science there's no suggesting like that. and computer science is pretty good for people who likes to work like individually or even sometimes there's fields in computer science that you've been on. Both as a team, but they still kind of contribute both like you can work in it, individually or in a group and you study be happy with it.
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So those are maybe. more pragmatic reasons. Studying computer science, but there's certainly important as well.
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I find that when I joined the computer science department that I found that I enjoyed. Like a i'm perfectly fine sitting there for hours typing away a code that doesn't work, but the accomplishment at the end of a code that finally works, the way that I wanted it to seems to bring quite a large amount of joy to me.
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So I realize i'm out of camera range here but i'll take a picture so i'm writing joy. And then in parentheses beauty enjoy computing. So that's the name of. Advanced placement computer science course from Berkeley. Maybe. source for joy is having elegant solutions. problems. So one large example that comes to mind this the unicode system. Video. So. ascii with which you're. familiar in computer systems. Is. Great for North American English. And it does a lot with seven bets doesn't even use the bets. So. So seven bids gives us to to the 720 characters. But the world is more than North American English. So. There are different standards. different ways to use an 820 characters. To character so. We can use a computer. Well, we have to know which standard we're using so that we don't. end up the strange characters when we. have new state aid that through one set of characters but the computer thanks for using the different one. And then we get shapes like. that's one that pops up, but there are lots of other ones I p. So unicode. In 30 is 32 bits. using all the 32 that's represented here. So there are ways to encode the four bit four Bytes of unicode into. more compact forms. So you can have a this Nice and that's a very popular. way of representing text her web pages because. If we're using North American English characters. We can keep using ask. For need more characters like. Back solving. Car vous francais. Then we can use two bites to do that. And so you CAFE. let's represent. unicode characters in one to four Bytes. So we can save a lot, and we can. Make use of. That. extend that. Anyway, so seems like. A very nice to me. Okay. Any other comments about. about the opportunities for the. importance of computer science and society today. fleeting. responsibilities that we have is computer science or or computer professionals. zeoli responsibility to. Create elegant solutions. Can people see the whiteboard.
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yeah.
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Okay. Any thoughts about responsibilities. Great. harm. The credit goes for doctors medical doctors. last day of March. April 1. So. Any plans for practical jokes yes. need to do before noon, I think that's. Right.
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yeah.
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About. Well, we didn't talk about doctrine discovery searches using that as an entry. programming languages, talking about this. Is. programming. And happens in lots of other areas doesn't it's not just specific to computer science. My train of thought kind of jumped the tracks here sorry. So i'm just. Intellectual property. So. Dealing with. Think about. The solutions that come from Ai approaches. They going to be. Are they going to be protected and who and who's protection, who would benefit that protection would be the programmers who wrote the API I mean would it be the API. itself self. assigned to. Someone. Let me, maybe need to revisit the way we think about intellectual property in terms of writing. In terms of algorithms and so forth. So just a little bit. So, leaving aside my tangent this one I have on the board does that make sense. Questions or comments. Okay. Why don't we. Stop that there oh. Oh welcome some online discussion, if there is any. So I set up. Your course for you to. rate your group members ranking. So you can give me some feedback about. Your group work. And if everybody can contribute equally, then I would encourage you to express that to me. Otherwise it's difficult to. match. tried to clarify some questions. First me to the discussion forum last night. So, was that post helpful. If you have questions that remain after looking at that post. You can let me know. I would encourage you to reply to the post, so that we can keep that discussion in one place. Some marks. i'm not sure. If that's visible to you, yet, but i'll hope to get the rest of them done today.
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So for the expiration heading. Where we just supposed to be describing the general like what each part of the web page covers so, for example, the people section covers the various professors, that you have are kind of thing. Or what what are you looking for, specifically with that.
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So. The kind i'm thinking for the kind of content that you find under that mean like. So under the whole. confined. General informational department, maybe that's an. overstatement or simplification, but. What are the kinds of things to find organized under that. mean like. For each of those main ranks that I didn't make it.
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So.
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So example about people. Is it helpful to Greg inbound the way the scrolling down. as well. that's not a standard way to do it. So I tell you for thinking what explorations one of the things you find under the name like and then. Content testing is about. You as. A student who's taking a computer science class at least. Even if you're not a computer science major. You have a. vested interest in. Finding and using the website so. What are the kinds of questions you have that you'd like to have answered by. One of the questions you can ask. And then the observations. The related to the things to find. My way to find. Some inspiration on my professional people. Give me what I want to find. So, then, the observations leads recommendations. You can say. It might be better if things around or something like that does that make sense. That makes sense.
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I think so.
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Sir sorry.
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yeah.
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Go ahead.
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So, so when my group and I were discussing of all the. assessment, like the website assessment we were kind of confused about. what to expect from the research and the graduate students, because we are undergrad and we don't really have that much idea about the research and the and the graduate so we don't know what to expect So how should we look into those websites.
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gen con now okay. So as an undergraduate student, you might. Know it's i'm not saying this is the right answer, but you might be curious about. What kind what what is research what kinds of research are done in the department. What does it mean to be a graduate student. Compared to an undergraduate student. See you might. As undergraduate students be looking for some. Some introduction to graduate studies. That make sense. So i'm not saying that there's no right or wrong questions to ask. Because your. computer science, either in justice one class or it's a few little study. The questions you have. Are there any questions for you. That make sense.
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yeah that does Thank you, Sir.
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Okay.
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So just for one minute late here I realized just one comment about the final exam. So. If we wanted to do a time Chris on your courses, we would need to have everyone agree. The face to face section to do that. And I know. When to deal with that. hurdle. So the exam will be take home. period, and then we can talk about details about that next week. I hope that's good news. Again, like I said. That exam is an. Evaluation of our. Discussion discussions and our. explorations of semester. i'm not trying to. do anything nefarious just. stopped. Excuse me, getting stuck in my mouth. Thank you very much.
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hello, Professor. Yes, oh so I was here the whole time but I couldn't get the attendance Kenny, and now it's closed Kenny opening for me.
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Sure, oh. So much another 15 minutes so.
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Much.
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Thank you very much thank you you're welcome take care, have a great day, see you. See you have an April. don't be too hard on people tomorrow thanks. Take care.
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Excuse me, Professor. exam is 25% right.
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Yes.
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But we need to pass the exam in order to pass the course. Yes, okay okay.
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So. let's just to make sure that you. To encourage you to take it seriously. i'm not trying to fail anybody in class. With that rule but just to make sure that. You say well. Are you got. A 70% based on the 7075 marks that are allocated before the exam. So i'm not gonna do anything for the final. You Sir see my perspective.
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yeah I got it.
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Okay, so it's not I don't mean. To be a cause for.
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concern.
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Okay.
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Yes, thank you.
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Okay you're welcome. Okay. Students are coming in, for the next class so i'll say goodbye. And i'll be back in my office hours later today. Okay, thanks again bye.
Zoom Chat Transcript
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Morning
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Good morning
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Good morning, everyone!
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Good morning
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Only because they were posting about it in the CS discord
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Student password
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what was on the discord?
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(if it doesn't involve the class, I don't need to know!)
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was that dramatic?
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I'd say the power of using computers to solve problems was pretty accurate. I am yet to experience the unpaid labour combined with not knowing my rights aspect of it.
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Career growth and advacement
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cant see anything written on the other board
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yes I know - will post the picture
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yes
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Ensure that whatever you are creating does not harm people, the economy, etc
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well truth be told there should be or perhaps will be a similar thing in the future depending on how good AI gets
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as the Hippocratic Oath I mean
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Sundus isn't here today, so please use your mics :-)
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attendance password
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?
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exsgnp
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exsgnp
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thank you
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thank you
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thanks
Responses
The most important thing that I encountered:
- Computer professionals should make sure to do no harm with future projects, and the possibility that since the world relies on tech, computing professionals should have an oath like doctors.
- I learned that we can make rate our group members on the upcoming assignment.
- understanding why we ourselves chose to join computer science
- what brought me into studying computer science is that it has vast job opportunities and is a secure and growing profession as per my opinion
- In todays class we have discuss about
- some people find the term divide and conquer offensive which i never considered
- I got into computer science because I liked the satisfaction of building something and having it work correctly. It is a lot of pressure for a CS professional to take on the responsibility of public good because there are so many different opinions and I don't know if it's possible to put that expectation on everyone.
- As computing professionals we have many ethical responsibiliites. We should consider the public good, do no harm, and uphold a certain standard of professionalism.
- Today we talked about the importance of studying computer science. I think Computer Science is playing key role in every field.
- Computing has space for both collaborative work and individual effort. Intellectual property may favor recent, incremental advances. Traditional knowledge is also important.
- One of the important discussions of topic was what brought you to Computer Science. For me, the answer is quite simple: CS enables me for make creative and logical solutions that would impact people’s lives and CS gives a lot of room for career advancement (hence personal financial advancement). The sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that one feels when the program successfully runs is incomparable.
- Today I discovered how Computer science could be a blessing in disguise. Pursuing the subject can help us make telecommunication easier, get good jobs with/without a degree as the job opportunities are high. Computer science also has a creative aspect besides a variety of specializations. I chose this major because of the endless possibilities the field offers.
- breaking the spell of silicon valley
- To answer the question, of why I chose to study Computer Science, it is because my father recommended it to me. I also enjoyed programming when I was younger. I recently thought that maybe it is the degree for me. There are also countless opportunities in this field. Furthermore, as a future computer scientist, one of my responsibilities will be the creation and development of new products , solving practical problems, and collaborating with other professionals as well.
- In today's class, there was some good discussion regarding computer science studies. There are things related to it such as feeling of accomplishment once the task related to computer science is finished
- I found our discussion regarding responsibilities for computing professionals to be very interesting. I agree to an extent with ensuring that your work doesn't harm people, but I also believe there is another side to this. For example, white hat hackers will hack corporations to ensure that someone malicious does not. These tools will exist regardless, so these harmful tools can be helpful to protect others.
- We talked about why we studied computer science. The reason I study computer science is because it suits my aptitude.
- We talked about what brought people into computer science and some of the answers are job opportunities, career growth, and salary. Which I agree as it was also one of the reason I chose Computer Science.
- Is about what our final exam format will be.
- I learnt that sometimes, people go into studying Computer Science with the wrong motivations, which might end up disillusioning them in the future. With that said, there are still plenty of good reasons for pursuing CS as a career: stable income, flexibility, satisfaction when coding, etc. Additionally, a CS professional holds many responsibilities because their software will be used by a lot of people. They must make sure that their software is safe and useable for diverse types of users.
- • The most important thing I learned from today’s lecture is the benefits or reasons why people study computer science. We also discussed some of the critical responsibilities of computing professionals. Professor informed us that we now have an option to rate our group members if we’d like to give him some feedback about participation of each group member.
- Today we have discussed about the study of computer science and discussed about everyone's perspective on choosing their carrier in computer science and we discussed all the advantages and benefits in the field. we also discussed the roles and responsibilities as computer engineers.
- Thing that brought us together in computer science were passion for computing, money, creative aspects, career growth and since we are in digital age it is possible we can land a job without having a degree from university. Basically there are endless opportunities. With these opportunities we have responsibilities while developing new products and services and yhose services being ethical.
- The responsibility you hold as a software engineer to a large pool of information both private and public.
- Today I learned about the many benefits of being in computer science from job flexibility, work life balance and the fulfilment other computer scientists get from their ability to code
- I learned my reasons for chasing a cs degree. I have always felt passionate about computer science, but I have never really bothered to analyze the root of my passion in the field. Today, I believe the main reasons for me pursuing a degree in computer science is to contribute to humanity and the most attainable way I believe I can do that using computer science. Additionally, I learned that we have responsibilities as cs professionals one of which is to do no harm. As cs professionals the common good of soc
- In today's meeting, we have discussed experience of CS relate to the authors and what is the reason to study computer science. what are advantages of this field and all. Later on we have discussed about website assessment as well.
- In todays class we discussed about the chapter 2 and professor asked experience while reading this chapter. Then we discussed what brought us to study in Computer Science. We had a discussion on that and we also got to know some people opinions on that. Then we discussed what are responsibilities of a person working in Computer science field. Then the professor discussed about Group Assessment, in which we added an option to rate your group members or if you like to give them feedback.
- The discussion about what brought you to study computer science was so engaging
- We discussed the question: what brought us to study computer science? briefly. We considered several reasons for choosing computer science as the major subject. We discussed the importance of computer science in today's era, and the responsibilities computer professionals have; we also talked about morals and principles an ideal computer professional should have.
- In today's lecture professor discussed and read Breaking the spell of silicon valley , as well as discussed was it dramatic?, How does our experience in CS relate to the authors, Unpaid work for greater good or not?
- computer science is a blessed field. We take the advantage of the development of math, physical,... So our duty is to create a better society, support other fields, and care about the weaknesses of human's being.
- today we learn that details will be talked about next week and some marks are updated (may not be visible yet. option to rate your group members if you like to give them feedback
- We need to ensure that whatever technology we are using or planning to invent does do any harm to the humanity as it can become a serious issue
- Today’s meeting started with attendance. After that professor told us about the submission of grades that we have to give to our group members, which seems to be fun and after that there was a discussion on assessment. And talked about syllabus a little bit.
- There is high demand for jobs, I didn't know that.
- In todays class, we discussed and read about chapter 2. We also spoke about computer science, job opportunities, and many more.
- After today's discussion, the most important thing that I learnt was just how important it is to honour prior work and contributions and to also understand that traditional knowledge is quite important in favour of those techniques that lead to very small advances.
- The most important thing that I learned is that computing is part of everything we do in our lives now! Expertise in computing enables you to solve complex, challenging problems we are facing now. Also, Computing enables you to make a positive difference in the world. Computing jobs are here to stay, regardless of where you are located. Expertise in computing helps you even if your primary career choice is something else. Computing offers great opportunities for true creativity and innovativeness. Computing
- I know the group work activity due on april 4th, AND we'll WOKING ON IT
- For me when stack with the program it will be very plainful, even when you finally success build the program it will still have many kinds of problem
The most difficult thing for me to understand:
- How oscar linked theclass. content..
- What the final will look like. I am still a bit confused
The thing about which I would most like to know more:
- The thing about which I would like to know more is the final exam
- The thing from todays lecture that I would most like to know more about is what are the responsibilities of a computer programmer. What programs would I develop to solve practical problems? What are the problems that need to be solved? How do I go about doing such a thing?
- Why has a job in the Comp Sci field become so desired?
- I would like to know more about the final exam and what the format, length, time limit etc will be like
- Should software engineering have a more "official" organization? There is a lot of pressure nowadays with applying professional engineering principles to computer science. While they have always existed before issues regarding important concepts like data privacy are becoming more apparent while at the same time you have people who might not be as caring of those ideals when they choose the field for simply.the prospects. Would an official licensing help prevent engineering oversights with programming?
- Today we talked about that we can mark our group members due to the work they done
- As technology advances, will AI ever take over computer professionals jobs?
- I'm interested in learning more about the group assignment. I'm planning to work on it tonight and I am mostly doing an outline of how I want to complete the assessment. I have to go through and read the assignment over once more to make sure that I know what I'm doing. I think the hardest part will be coordinating the members of my group together and assembling all our work into one cohesive whole.
- I would like to know if there are any groups working towards making an ethical oath for computer science professionals? I think it would be beneficial to outline the ethics computer scientists should have and I wonder if anyone is working towards making a standard code.
- I want to know more about the collaborative aspects of computing
- Why a decent amount of employees in the past (primarily in the 80s and 90s) in Silicon Valley kept choosing to work for their company if they had to work long overtime often and didn't get paid for it. Unless there weren't many jobs still for CS that they wanted/could do, I would have imagined the amount of stress and lack of free time would not be worth it.
- As a future computing professional, I'm going down the Computer Science path, and I wanted to learn more about future jobs, like what are my other options and what path resonates with me the most. I guess what I'm worried and stressed about is what is in store for me after I graduate? What are my responsibilities as a computing professional when working?
- Today I learned and would like to know more about we can see the stirrings of this in the growth of startups that are profit-driven but have social purpose at their core, the battle for millennial talent being driven by the need of a generation to spend their working lives doing something meaningful, and the concrete steps being taken by companies like Google DeepMind to actively engage with third parties in shaping the technologies that will power the businesses of the future. Language can be used to recal
- I need to know more about the news came out two days before about the feds outline plan in 2030 cutting down 40 percent of emissions cut
- Breaking the spell of Silicon Valley
- Using computers to solve problems is a powerful motivator. But where do we draw the line after which we should not indulge further in the computer science field. There must be some restrictions to what we are building at some point in the future.
- I would like to know more about how code can be made usable by many different people who use different languages.
- in what circumstance, people thought that they need to make a rule of responsbility of using computer
- The thing that I would like to know more is why people study computer science and responsibilities such as developing that does not harm society and it should be public good how can we decide for example (tinder it used as social media and some people such to scam people for example tinder swindler( a case of three people getting involved in scam? how can we see it whether it is good for public or not?
- What would a Hippocratic oath for computing professionals look like? This is an industry unlike many others that offers members the ability to change the world - in good ways and bad. As such, if computing professionals had to swear an oath to do no harm, what would that look like exactly?
- I would like to know more about our final exam.
Wiki
Link to the UR Courses wiki page for this meeting
