CSE 390HA - 122 Honors Seminar
Instructor: Miya Natsuhara (mnats [at] cs [dot] washington [dot] edu)
Welcome to CSE 390HA, the Honors section for CSE 122!
Each week, we will discuss various topics related to computer science. Our sessions will mostly relate to the societal and cultural impacts of technology and CS, and some exploration of some technical concepts. This course is NOT an opportunity to learn more programming or add more "rigor" to 122, nor is any background or familiarity with computer science required outside of what is necessary for CSE 122. This is an opportunity to think about computer science and other related topics in a broader context.
Required Book: Weapons of Math Destruction
Author: Cathy O'Neil
Cathy O'Neil earned a Ph.D. in math from Harvard and worked as a math professor at Barnard College before switching over to the private sector, working as a quant for the hedge fund D.E. Shaw and as a data scientist in the New York start-up scene. She is a regular contributor to Bloomberg Opinion and in 2016 wrote the book Weapons of Math Destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. She is the CEO of ORCAA, an algorithmic auditing company, is a member of the Public Interest Tech Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her new book The Shame Machine: who profits in the new age of humiliation came out in March 2022.
Some Purchasing Options: Third Place Books, Powell's Books, Amazon
UW Libraries also has a few physical copies of the book and an ebook version available.
Please contact Miya if you are have concerns about getting a copy of this book.
Credit
This is a 1-credit, discussion-based course. To earn credit for this course, you need to "complete" 7 weeks of discussion activities and the culminating activity.
To "complete" a weekly discussion activity , you need to 1) do the assigned reading 2) do any assigned activities (requires some effort for completion) and 3) attend the discussion for that week (if you finish all the tasks and attend for a week, it's "completed"). There are 9 weeks that we will be meeting so that means you are able to miss 2 and still receive credit for the class!
Details about the culminating activity will be posted towards the end of the quarter. It will involve researching and writing a paper on a new topic based on our discussions throughout the quarter.
The readings and activities for this class are not meant to take up a lot of time and you are not being tested on your understanding of the material. The exercises are there to get you thinking about computer science, how you can apply it to your own areas of interest, and how it impacts your day to day life.
Meetings
Our class meets on Tuesdays from 3:30 pm - 4:50 pm in LOW 111.
Course Content
| Date | Info | Jan 14 |
In this section, we will all meet and get to know each other and have a broad overview of what we want the discussion to look like this quarter. We discussed the high level goals of this course:
We emphasized that 122 is about how to program computers while computer science (and computational/algorithmic thinking) is a much large scope than just programming. As a group, we discussed:
Assignment Due Today:
Assignment Due Next Tuesday @ 3:15 pm:
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| Jan 21 |
In this section, we will discuss the introductory chapter and the first two chapters of the book. We will discuss what models are and the author's definition of a WMD. We will look into various tools/models we work with every day to spot any potential WMDs there. Assignment Due Today @ 3:15 pm:
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| Jan 28 |
In this section, we will discuss the U.S. News College Rankings from Chapter 3 of the book. We talked about many of the specific problems brought up in the chapter, and tried to come up with ways around them. |
| Feb 4 |
In this section, we will discuss online ads and how they impact our privacy. We also talked about how advertisers track you in your day to day life with third-party tracking. |
| Feb 11 |
In this section, we will discuss impacts of modeling in the criminal justice system and how we can try to define fairness from a modeling approach. |
| Feb 18 |
This week, we will discuss what WMDs are in place in the job market. |
| Feb 25 |
In this section, we will discuss what WMDs are in place in workplaces. |
| March 4 |
In this section, we'll discuss how credit scores and related systems function in society. |
| March 11 |
This week, we will have a panel of Software Engineers and Allen School faculty members in the Computer Science field. |