Week 3 Report

 This week we learned quite a bit about ethics, study techniques and the CS curriculum at CSUMB. 

For the study tips, I chose the topic of effective note taking techniques, since that is an area where I must improve. I learned about the 2-6 method which is making two columns on a paper and then six columns for actual note taking, where the first two columnists are for highlighting key points. Another good technique is the split page method, where one side of the page is for notes and the other side for highlighting text. We can also add a third column for questions. One of the coolest things I learned is to use colors for note taking, which is proven to help students retain more information. Therefore I bought some colored pens for this purpose. 

In terms of ethics we learned a bunch of new stuff. The key topic is the different ethical frameworks. For instance, there are virtue ethics which refers to a framework based on virtues such as truthfulness, moderation and justice among others. Another important ethical framework is utilitarianism, which refers to a framework based on achieving the greatest good for a majority of individuals. Interestingly, many corporations explicitly claim to be for utilitarianism but in reality much of their actual practices adhere to ethical egoism, which is a framework based on maximizing self-interest. This is a topic I am exploring more in depth in my ethics essay, which will be examining the role of social media platforms regarding the impact on consumers' health and well being. 

We are applying ethical frameworks to the stakeholders of a given issue in technology, which is a great assignment since it teaches us more about the philosophy of the industry while also bolstering our critical thinking and writing skills. As I am beginning to research my ethics essay topic more I begin to realize that every company has an overt ethical framework they claim to follow and then an actual framework and oftentimes they mismatch. 

An assigned reading taught us about what a computer science major needs to know. A portfolio is essential for a computer science major wishing to pursue work in the field. GPA and resumes are relatively worthless compared to the portfolio, and honestly degrees are also probably not nearly as worthy as actual hands-on experience. One of the most underrated skills for computer science majors are good oral communication and collaboration skills, which makes sense in terms of explaining why our CS online program is so team-oriented. Knowing the Unix philosophy and having administration and Linux skills are essential too. There are numerous topics that computer science majors must be decent at, including: operating systems, database systems, computer architecture, data structures, algorithms, various languages, and more. The cool part is our program covers the majority of the necessary skills, from our examination of the CS curriculum. 

The CSUMB CS online program presumes that students follow the code of integrity, which is a reasonable set of rules to maintain academic and personal integrity while completing courses. There are three basic rules: do not submit solutions or code that is not your own, do not share solution code with other students, and an indication must be made whenever external assistance was received on a submitted assignment. These are honestly basic common sense rules to live by, and I have no issue following the code of integrity.