Response to the ND CSE Manifesto and Portrait (Project 1)

Please look here for the original post.  

The manifesto is more of eulogy honoring ND CSE students than a war cry.  It was meant to describe to the rest of the world the general ethos of the average CSE student:  innovators, creators, boundary-pushers from all walks of life united by our passion for our field, our Notre Dame community, and by our desire to serve others.  That dedication to service is actually why we decided to frame the eulogy as a speech honoring an ND CSE student, possibly one inspires them and others, as opposed to the more militant proclamation made in the Conscience of a Hacker.  At least from what we could tell, ND CSE students, possibly due to the fact that we get to live in an academic environment with ample opportunities to follow our intellectual pursuits that actively encourages service and giving back to the community, do not feel anger or animosity when it comes to defending their field and their individual curiosities.

As for my personal thoughts and feelings, the manifesto does reflect my beliefs…  for the most part.  While deep down I like believe that, to at least my friends, families, and acquaintances who aren’t as knowledgeable about computer science and tech, I am as ripped and sweet as the manifesto makes ND CSE students out to be, on a more day-to-day basis I find the manifesto a tad idealistic.  Maybe it’s because I’m still a college student who hasn’t even started his career, but when you’re only writing code that will be run only once for an assignment or by an extremely limited number of people as part of a research project on a daily basis, you do sometimes lose track of how awesome ND CSE can be.

 

The portrait seemed to successfully capture and image of the general population of ND CSE students.  Reading through it I found myself identifying with almost all of the descriptions, except for the part about physical activities (being perfectly honest, I fit more of the stereotype of the nerd who stays in a little too much playing World of Warcraft Skyrim Diablo Hearthstone Fallout).  One thing I noticed though was that the portrait could possibly also be used to describe the Notre Dame student body as a whole, with the exception of a few specific points such as experimenting with technology and reading tech articles.  This is probably due to the fact that Notre Dame students in general fit a very specific profile.

As humorous of a read as the portrait was, reading through it got me thinking about how much stereotypes influence how I, and all other people, view the world.  It makes sense why:  we are constantly being bombarded by a wealth of sensory information that would overwhelm us if we did not compartmentalize and sort it for later use.  While there is no doubt that nobody is a fan of complete sensory overload, the real danger of this is not being aware that we stereotype on a daily basis and using stereotypes as a way to actively discriminate or bully people.  The presence of the ND CSE Manifesto and Portrait is not harmful by its mere existence.  In fact I hope it creates a positive stereotype  of computer science for the people who read it.  The danger is in how people will use it.  I guess when all and said and done, no matter how pervasive a stereotype is, both good and bad, there will never be a substitute for actually taking the time to get to know a person.

The ND CSE Manifesto and Portrait (Project 1)

By Dinh Do (ddo), Chris Ray (cray), and Nathan Vahrenberg (nvahrenb)

The ND CSE Manifesto

We are the children of revolution.  The history of our field is filled with stories of how young upstarts who came seemingly out of nowhere took the world by storm, disturbing the status quo and sticking it to “the man.”  In 1976, 3 guys in a garage, like a modern-day Prometheus, brought computing power to the masses.  In 1996, 2 students began a research project that would give the English language a new verb and give the masses, for the first time in history, access to all of humanity’s collective knowledge.  The world as we know it today would not be possible if not for this legacy, a legacy we are poised to inherit and carry on.

We are the innovators of a new frontier.  We stand at the crossroads of math, engineering, and art, yet we stand as something completely different.  We’re the weird kids who decided to make a new game using everyone else’s rules.  To some, that makes us frauds, upstarts who stand on the shoulders of giants and shouldn’t be counted among their prestigious ranks.  To others, we’re just a bunch of geeks and nerds.  But we know better than that.  We know who we are.

We’re the creators.  Through our hopefully theoretical blood and our all too real sweat and tears, we have the power to create anything within the realms of our imaginations.  We’ve built tools as simple as a command line calculator and as complex as a protein-folding simulator.  We’ve produced content of all forms, whether it be text, images, videos, etc., and have created a way to share it with world.  We’ve created entire virtual worlds to explore and filled them with people we’ve breathed life into.  And given time, we may even help bring forth new, artificial life.

We’re the boundary-pushers.  We don’t look at a challenge and shy away with fear.  We simply smirk before charging in, the words of Master Yoda echoing in our head:  “Do or do not, there is no try.”  To those who say a project will take 5 days, we say we’ll do it in 5 hours.  To those who say our creation is groundbreaking, we ask how we can take it even further.  To those who say it’s never been done before, we say we’ll be the first to succeed where others have failed.  To those who say it’s impossible, we say bring it.

We’re the do-gooders. Ingrained in our psyche is the insatiable desire to work for the common good. We dream big and aspire to use technology to eradicate diseases, uproot inequality, stop crime and eliminate poverty. Impossible, you say? Maybe. But our greatest fear is doing nothing. We will never stop.

Most importantly of all, we are ND.  We are part of a community united by our love of God, country, and Notre Dame.

The future is uncertain and full of endless possibilities, be we will be there on the forefront, ready to guide our fellow man into the light of a new age.

 

Portrait of an ND CSE Student (a.k.a. The Odds are Good, but the Goods are Odd)

Appearance and Dress

Mostly well-dressed, but not formal. Plenty of Notre Dame attire. CSE students are dressed the same as the general student body at Notre Dame. You wouldn’t be able to point out a CSE student just by the way they dress. Jeans, t-shirts, occasional flannel. Regular college attire. More are clean-shaven than not.

Reading Habits

They like to read, but don’t read as frequently as the used to – not enough time in the day. The average student desires to read more than they do, but don’t have as much time as they used to. Reading has also shifted away from paper novels and more toward online articles and “quick fix” reads. Assigned readings can be hit or miss: Most CSE students don’t mind assigned readings as long as they’re somewhat relevant or interesting. Technology news sites are popular, as well as sites that aggregate content like Reddit.

Other Interests

Experimenting with technology, and using what they can find to create something useful. Socializing, whether in small groups or large. Video games are popular. Students think highly of most of their classes and professors at ND, and appreciate classes with obvious relevance to the professional workplace.

Physical Activity and Sports

Club or recreational sports are far more common than varsity-level competitive team sports, although casual pickup games of soccer or football are common. Individual sports (like biking or skiing) are also well-represented. A generally athletically fit group, despite a sometimes less-than-healthy diet, particularly around finals week.

Education

34% of students were ranked in the top 1% of their class, and 75% were ranked in the top 5%. Most have very high SAT and ACT scores. 40% came from a public high school, 40% came from a Catholic private high school. Interestingly, many CSE students are relatively new to coding, and did not know any programming before the middle of their high school career. A good portion had their first coding experience on campus.

Gender and Ethnicity

Approximately 75% of students are caucasian, and while Notre Dame’s full admitted class is 47% female, about 25% of CSE students are female. However, CSE students come from a very diverse background independent of skin color. Students could come from any economic or social background.

Religion

The vast majority of CSE students are Catholic, and a large number of the remaining percentage are Christian of some denomination. Despite atheism and agnosticism making up a sizable portion of the “hacker ethos,” that population does not seem to be well-represented at Notre Dame.

Communication Style

Electronic communication is popular just by necessity: video chat, text messaging, Facebook group messages, etc. Interestingly, CSE students tend to prefer to meet in person to work on group projects, even if it means walking a good distance in terrible weather. Most likely this is to boost productivity compared to group messages.

Geographical Distribution

The vast majority of students are American citizens and/or live full-time in the United States. Some are international students. Of the international students, many plan to stay in America after graduation.

Post-Graduation Plans

A large majority of the class will be entering the workforce after graduation. Few to none plan to start their own software business, and most will be working for very large, well-known technology companies as software developers. Even among the more hardware-focused Computer Engineering majors, software-oriented jobs are more sought-after.

Miscellaneous

There are very few ways that an average CSE student differs from an average ND student. It would be nearly impossible to determine if someone was a CSE student or not just by looking at them.  

 

On Interviews (Reading 02 Response)

At the time of this blog post I am still in the middle of the interview process with a few companies, so apologies in advance for the overall vagueness of the response.

The job interview process I’ve been going through for the past couple few months has followed pretty much the exact same formula for every position I have applied to:

1. Submit your application.
2. Make a good 1st impression during the initial phone screen.
3. Make a 2nd good 1st impression during the 2nd phone interview.
4. Make several more good 1st impressions during the followup phone and on-site interviews.
5. ???
6. Profit…  or get rejected and repeat the entire process all over again while trying to maintain your sanity.

I think I’ve been doing well so far during this process, with most interviews having ended with me confident in the answers I gave as well we me and the interviewer(s) having friendly conversations on subjects ranging from work life to the coolest little restaurants in Hawaii.  Really have to give a special mention to Notre Dame’s Career Center here for helping me prepare with all the resume reviews and practice interviews.

What really surprised me was that for all but a few companies, none of the interviews required me to do any coding or submit examples of my previous work.  One would think that a company that’s looking to hire computer scientists/programmers, or anyone who has applied for a technical position for that matter, would want to test out skills.  If this was me a year ago applying to internships, I would’ve simply discounted it as a simple lucky break.  Now, especially after my internship experience last summer, I’m more inclined to think, and be be thankful for the fact, that maybe these companies really are just looking for people with the capacity to quickly ramp up to their responsibilities in their position as well as successfully integrate and possibly become leaders within their workplace.

The only thing that has really frustrated me so far during this process is the wait period between each of the steps.  While in the grand schemes it really is only a minor inconvenience and I have no control over what’s happening over at the company’s HR Department, the anxiety of not knowing how you did during a step during an interview as well as the sheer uncertainty of your future career dangling in front of you can become overwhelming, especially during the school year.  Though, I will admit that it is exciting to realize that in a few months all of this anxiety will be gone and I will have an idea about where I’ll be living and what I’ll be doing as the start of my career.

Overall, I personally don’t have any qualms with the general interview process as it is.  Just learning the basics of interviewing, being professional, and being honest with who you are goes a long way.   In terms of efficiency, I think the process could be faster or at least the wait times between responses could be reduced, though I do understand that this is a really difficult goal to accomplish due to the multiple factors at play at each company’s HR Department.  Increasing efficiency could also run the risk of resorting to methods that would allow interviewers to quickly filter through candidates, methods that may or may not accurately reflect how a candidate will actually perform when interacting in the work environment with coworkers.  In terms of effectiveness, I think the odds of an ill-suited candidate making it through the entire process drop with each interview round.  In other words, while an ill-suited candidate may be able to smooth-talk their way through the earlier rounds, they are eventually going to be outclassed by more qualified candidates as the rounds become more and more selective.  Finally, in terms of whether or not the process is humane and ethical, I have not personally encountered interview situations which could be considered humane or unethical such as what happened to Steve Shrogan.  While I do not know whether or not such interview practices are the norm, I think most people and company’s would agree that an interview process like Steve’s would would be considered unethical, would ultimately hurt the company’s reputation, and should definitely not be considered something worth emulating.  An interview should ultimately be viewed as a relationship:  if the interviewer and the company they represent do their best to make the process as smooth and non-nerve-wracking as possible and the interviewee does what they can to be professional and make that good first impression, the result is an interview that either ends with an offer or ends with the interviewee walking away with no hard feelings and recommending that their friends apply.  If either side fails to put in their effort, then neither side wins.

Hippie vs Hipster (Reading 01 Response)

I’m not going to lie…  As I type this post late at night in the comfort of my room, peering at the Portrait of J. Random Hacker , I’m flashing back to my sophomore and junior years and the multiple night’s I’ve spent caffeinated during long hacking runs for either school assignments or whatever coding side project I happened to be interested in.  I’m even find myself laughing at the surprisingly/creepily accurate descriptions of my wardrobe, sports interests, reading interests, etc.

Humorous (and almost stalker-level accurate) descriptions aside, these articles show that there is a disconnect between how larger society views/defines hackers and how hackers view /define themselves.  There even seems to be some contention within the hacker community as well!

Mentioning the word “hacker” to someone without technical/computer background will most likely illicit images people locked in their dark rooms, illuminated only by the light of their monitors, furiously typing away as they digitally infiltrate some corporation or government’s security for reasons ranging from espionage, to terrorism, to online bullying, to “the lulz”.  While those people certainly exist and definitely have a reputation over-inflated by the media, they represent only a facet of what constitutes the hacker community.

My personal opinion of what a hacker is aligns pretty closely with the descriptions given in the articles and the description I think most of the hacker community would ascribe to:  an individual with an almost insatiable sense of curiosity that leads them to do things like take stuff apart in order to figure out how they really work and push the boundaries of what can be done simply for the challenge.  The are, in essence, innovators with the same revolutionary, counterculture spirit that would not be out of place at Woodstock.  Given this definition, I would normally be quick to say that I am not really a hacker.  Yeah I do enjoy taking toys apart and looking and open-source code form time to time to learn how things work.  Yeah I do enjoy reading articles about technology and new discoveries.  However, ask any one of my friends or relatives and they will most likely laugh at the notion of me having any sort of rebellious side.  This revolutionary attitude is what seems to be one of the most important elements of the hacker archetype, even more than the desire to learn and create.  Or is it?

With the rise of Silicon Valley came a redefinition, or as Brett Scott put it, a gentrification of the hacker archetype.  Hackers are no longer playful troublemakers looking to challenge convention for the sake of curiosity, but rather quirky (dare I say “hipster”) innovators who love getting things done and solving problems for profit.  While that redefinition does make it tempting to call myself a hacker, there is a sense of dysphoria that comes from these two characterizations that prevents me from ultimately making that jump or from even fully accepting that redefinition.

On one hand you have the hippie hackers, the ones with the rebellious streak who hack websites and break code for the sake of curiosity and fun.  To identify with them would be to lie to or trick myself into believing that I too share those revolutionary tendencies.  On the other hand you have the hipster Silicon Valley crowd, the startups who like to portray themselves as the “underdogs” despite being part of the now incredibly wealthy and influential tech industry.  To identify with them seems to coincide with everything that my engineering career here at Notre Dame has been leading up to, yet I can’t help but romanticize the notion of the hippie, rebellious, innovator hacker, as if that archetype is what I should really be striving to be.

I guess all I can do right now is be content with my title of “Computer Scientist” as this civil war over definition works itself out.  Who knows, maybe this myriad of forces will yield a definition that I can wholeheartedly identify with, not unlike how computer science is the beautiful crossroads of math, engineering, and individual innovation.  Maybe this fight is just the inevitable result of a field born from rebellion finally reaching maturity.  Maybe this is all just the ramblings of a student who’s reached the end of another highly caffeinated night.

 

Reading 00 Response

The Parable of the Talents tells the story of a man who entrusts 3 of his servants with some of his money before heading off on a long journey.  The first 2 servants go out and invest what they were given, doubling what they each had, which the 3rd, slightly fearful of his master, does nothing with what he was given.  The parable ends with the first 2 servants being praised and rewarded by their returning master and the 3rd servant being punished.

While the word “talents” used in the parable refers specifically to money used back in the 1st century AD, the modern use of the word still lends itself well to the lesson being conveyed.  God has given every one of His children gifts and He wants all of us to use those gifts to the best of our abilities.  While some of His children may seem more gifted/talented than others, He will still reward those who actually use what they have been given.  The parable even somewhat harkens back to the original task God gave Adam and Eve (and all of humanity by extension) of being the stewards of creation in that God will reward those who use their gifts to care for the world and ultimately leave it in a better state than they found it.  Going into an even broader interpretation and relating the parable to Christianity as a whole, the man leaving on a journey represents Jesus’s ascension into heaven and his eventual return, where he will judge and ultimately reward us, his servants, for remaining faithful and using our talents for the greater good.

The lesson taught by the Parable of the Talents should especially resonate with computer scientists and engineers.  Computers and software now play a part in nearly every aspect of daily life.  Computers in cars control a range of functions from giving driving directions to controlling the brakes.  Companies like Amazon utilize software to carry out transactions on a global scale.  There are even microprocessors embedded in some pacemakers to control their function.  The number of roles computers fill in daily life will only continue to grow, and with it the amount of responsibility and accountability computer scientists and engineers should be held to.  These individuals have a unique set of talents and gifts that allow them to influence many areas of society thanks to how pervasive computers are.  With that influence comes the potential of both unintentionally or intentionally causing serious harm to society, from minor inconveniences like web applications slowing down due to the number of users  to major controversies like massive data leaks (e.g. the iCloud leaks) or entire airline systems being going down.  In short, all computer scientists and engineers, regardless of religious affiliation, have a responsibility to society as a whole to use their talents and gifts for the benefit of all mankind, ensuring that the products they create have been developed using the best standards and practices available and that they adhere to some set of principles that protect the rights and lives of all users.

Introductions (for Reading 00)

Hello everyone!  My name is Chris Ray.  I am a senior at the University of Notre Dame majoring in Computer Science.  Some of my hobbies include drumming in rock bands, snowboarding, gaming, sound design, and cooking.

I originally started off as a mechanical engineer during my freshman year, but started to gravitate towards CS after completing a few coding assignments for the Intro to Engineering class at ND as well as a few online coding lessons.  What really attracted me to the major and ultimately convinced me to switch was the fact that programming allowed me to rapidly create cool applications that I could then show off to friends and family (e.g. I could bring back and show off an iPhone app I created for a final project as opposed to a just a drawing of a bridge).

With this class I hope to gain a better understanding of the various ethical issues that computer scientists and engineers face out in the field as well as examine the possible varying viewpoints that come with each issue in order to more accurately form my own views.

In my opinion the most important ethical issues facing computer scientists and engineers involve securing user data and ensure user privacy, such as how systems handle log files, how far data privacy goes when working with law enforcement, and how data security/privacy breaches should be handled given the widespread, international nature of the Internet.  That last issue is one I am particularly interested in studying due to previous internship experience working with data privacy policies.