So the first important/most interesting thing that I learned from this class was other people’s views on ethics and where they come from. Going into this class without much knowledge of where other CS students get their ethics, I blindly assumed that most of their ethics came from religion. Even though I would say Appalachian state is kind of classified as being in the south, its no secret that its a liberal college town. Nevertheless, growing up in the ‘actual’ south, I suspected that more people would say in their presentations that their morals come from christianity, but from what I remember from a few months ago, most people said their morals come from something along the lines of the golden rule, or from their mothers. So, I found that interesting.
The second interesting thing I learned this semester are the grey areas of ethics in computer science. The thing that comes to mind here is the privacy policy assignment where we researched the terms of service for software program that we use. I looked into the mobile app textra, and it was really interesting how textra, along with most others of its kind, can store your personal information without it being made explicit in the TOS.
The last thing would be bitcoin. Not having much knowledge of the stock market, and likewise, bitcoin, I thought Dr. Wilkes’ rather positive experience with bitcoin investing was fascinating. I really want to look into bitcoin now.
The one piece of advice that I would give to future students is, quite simply, that this is an easy class. Junior seminar was tough, with either professor that currently teaches it. As long as you do the assignments, its a simple course. They’re mostly blogs and ethical discussions, as opposed to the normal hardcore, objectively right-or-wrong-answer CS programming assignments, and the assignments are credit/no credit; its an easy A/A-.
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