Podcast alert! Computer Science Off Course!!!!
As will be clear to people following my recent work, I have become quite disillusioned with computer science as a field. How it is possible, I wrote in a recent paper, that our curricula typically do not even include research methods?! (let alone wider topics such as history and philosophy of science).
There were many moments where I realized things are not going well in Computer Science, but one of those was when I tried to actually suggest to introduce a research methods course in a master program I used to work at. In the course as we planned it, people from the all groups would talk about how they do research, so that it would cover the breadth of CS, from formal methods to HCI. It would also make it easy to implement, as we could do one or two content lectures, and then rest could be guest lectures about recent papers. A smart plan I thought. That turned out to be a mistake.
Not only was the idea rejected, the rejection was accompanied by shouting. "Our students," fumed a professor in formal methods whom I had looked up to a great deal when I was a student myself, "do not need to be taught about interviewing!" That is not real computer science, was implied, but of course often enough in other situations, that was said out loud.
Interviewing is not Computer Science
Philosophy is not Computer Science
Ethics is not Computer Science
But why though? Why aren't these things part of what we do? Shouldn't they be? In an ideal world, we could 'just' introduce these topics, but in the actual world, people in Computer Science love algorithms, love complexity and have started to values these things over all others. And it is not just that they like them more, they believe these things form the true core, and adding soft courses is diluting, weakening the field.
So since I don't really think I can change CS myself, I can try to help others to at least consume a more varied information diet! As I say in our first episode, this podcast secretly is a course I'd love to teach. If you have ideas, please reach out to me!
Then a tiny backstory on how this podcast came along, it was originally a reading club that I recruited for when I gave talks about a broader CS, and then Hanna kept showing up, en kept suggested we make a podcast about it, and that is a wonderful idea! It is much easier for people to listen along then to read everything, sometimes babysteps are the best step!
Member discussion