A13ZacharyClark

A13ZacharyClark

To-Do

Please Answer the following Questions: provide a brief rationale for your answer — not just yes/no answers

1. which classes did you take outside of your chosen discipline?
   1. how did you select these classes?
      1. based on interest
      2. based on requirements for your degree program
   2. did would you evaluate the “outside classes”?
      1. a waste of time
      2. okay
      3. an enrichment of your education
      4. if you had a choice: would you take more outside classes?
2. to be a well educated graduate in your respective discipline — what do you consider the most important objectives?
   1. did CU offer classes for you to meet these objectives?
   2. have you pursued these objectives outside of classes (in other settings at CU; outside of CU)?
3. what do you consider the most important impact of new media and human-centered computing on YOUR education?

which classes did you take outside of your chosen discipline?

Mainly philosophy classes:

Intro to Philosophy, Ethics & Morality, and Symbolic Logic

I've also taken an anthropology course, a few physics and math courses, and am currently taking Cognitive Science.

how did you select these classes? (e.g. based on interest or based on requirements for your degree program)

Philosophy is another passion of mine, as I find the mind exercises fun. I like having my beliefs challenged, since it causes me to either realize faults or solidify my choices. The specific choices I made within philosophy were mainly to follow the track of pre-reqs. I needed the Intro class for most other classes, Ethics was another entry-level class, and then Symbol Logic seemed like it would fit well with computer science.

I chose the rest of the classes based on what sounded most interesting within requirements for my degree. For example, I needed to take either linguistics or cognitive science as the pre-req for a class, and cognitive science sounded more interesting.

how would you rate the “outside classes”? (e.g. a waste of time or an enrichment of your education)

I loved all the philosophy classes, and I feel like they offered a lot towards enrichment of my education. Learning how to use classical logic for problem solving and deduction has helped out enormously in computer science, and I think the mental exercise of learning about various philosophers arguments has helped me become an all around better learner. Additionally, Symbolic Logic played well into Computer Science, since we did many formulations of boolean logic, which programming uses quite a bit of. Before taking that class I'd often take some time needing to reason through what exactly I should write in my "if" conditions. After finishing the class, I have had a much firmer grasp on how to isolate for the conditions I want to check.

The rest of the classes were, in general, interesting, but didn't feel like they enriched my education. Much of the knowledge seems like it wouldn't apply much in other areas on learning or working. For instance, knowing about the anthropology of ancient civilizations doesn't play much into any other areas of my learning. At most, taking these classes have improved my study habits, which certainly bleed over to the rest of my academic career.

if you had a choice: would you take more outside classes?

I would certainly like to take more philosophy classes, and have been tempted to go for a minor or even double major. Coming into CU I was pretty evenly split on interest between philosophy and computer science, and ended up choosing CS because it had a better chance for a good career. I certainly don't regret that decision, but I do wish I could take more philosophy.

For the other classes, probably, but not for the purpose of furthering my skills or employability. I find simply learning to be very enjoyable. I love to be able to simply take all the classes I find interesting, and to broaden my general knowledge of the world.

to be a well educated graduate in your respective discipline — what do you consider the most important objectives?

To be well educated in computer science, I consider the following very important:

• Knowledge of the inner workings of computers (ie, how do the programs you write get turned into instructions and then executed)
• Understanding of differences between various programming languages, including reference passing and blocks and functions
• Knowledge of object oriented programming
• Problem solving skills: some knowledge of how, given a certain goal, to go about solving it with programming
• Understanding of basic formal logic

did CU offer classes for you to meet these objectives?

In most cases yes, with some notable exceptions:

• I felt the instruction on formal logic lacking within the CS department. In intro programming courses, basic boolean operators were introduced, but no real focus was placed on it. I got more experience through a Philosophy class, but I think it should have been included in the CS curriculum.
• Most of these objectives were resolved in two main classes: Systems and Principles of Programming Languages. These were amazing classes, and easily the highlights of my education at CU so far. It seems odd that so much of the important learning was summed up in these 2, when it coud have been better spread across the other classes I've taken.
• Problem solving is mostly lacking. Systems did a good job of structuring labs towards this, but all other classes were much more "here is a problem and the way you should move towards a solution". Understanding how to approach a problem is huge, and I feel it is under-focused at CU.

have you pursued these objectives outside of classes (in other settings at CU; outside of CU)?

Yes. I work as a web developer, and I'm always trying to improve my abilities while working. When working with new languages, I always try to pick up the features of that language, and exploit them to the best possible effect. I enjoy refactoring my code, and am always searching for better ways to write my code.

Additionally, most of my work is problem solving, so I'm continually practicing this.

hat do you consider the most important impact of new media and human-centered computing on YOUR education?

I feel like new media and HCC have not affected my education very much. The biggest impact has probably been from tools like Google Docs allowing better collaboration with my peers. Group projects have always been a pain in school, since it can be very difficult to find times everyone is free. Using these collaboration helpers have been very useful, and has had a big impact on working with groups.