CSE 390HA - 122 Honors Seminar

This is the website for the Winter 2026 iteration of CSE 390HA.

Note: looking for a different iteration of CSE 390HA? Visit the 390HA course listing.

• Instructor: Matt Wang (email: mxw@cs.washington.edu)
• Meeting Time: Thursdays, 3:30 - 4:50 PM (starting Thursday, January 15th)
• Location: SAV 166
• Office hours available by appointment (and on Mondays from 3:30-4:20 in CSE 464)

Overview

Welcome to CSE 390HA, the Honors section for CSE 122! Each week, we will discuss the societal and cultural impacts of computer science (and more broadly, technology), with some exploration of technical concepts to support these discussions. This is intended to be an opportunity to think about computer science and other related topics in a broader context.

Notably: this course is not an opportunity to learn more programming, computer science, or add more "rigor" to 122. No background or familiarity with computer science is required beyond enrolling in CSE 122.

All information in this class will be available on this course website. EdStem will be used for peer discussion, and Canvas will be used for submitting work. Further course policies, including how to get credit, are listed under course policies.

Required Book: Weapons of Math Destruction

In CSE 390HA, we will read Cathy O'Neil's Weapons of Math Destruction. Students will have weekly required readings from the book; however, a copy of the book is not necessary during the weekly class meeting.

Options to read the book:

• UW libraries has a few physical copies of the book and an ebook version
• Suggested purchasing options: Elliot Bay Book Company, Third Place Books, Powell's Books

Please contact Matt if you have concerns about getting a copy of the book.

Author: Cathy O'Neil

From Cathy's website:

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. In 2016 she wrote the book Weapons of Math Destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. and in 2022 the book The Shame Machine: who profits in the new age of humiliation. She is the CEO of ORCAA, an algorithmic auditing company, and is the board member of OCEAN, a public charity that defends the public interest against the misuse of algorithms.

Course Content

Overview & Schedule

Click on the topic entry to go to a more detailed overview!

Week 1: Introduction

Before class: nothing! Just show up and bring your best self!.

This class will be a combination of:

1. a quick (but important) set of introductions!
2. a typical "syllabus day" overview of course policies and expectations
3. a meta discussion on what you want to get out of this class, and setting up community norms
4. some priming questions for our quarter: what computer science is, why we study it, what computers do, and whether or not they are "good" or "bad"

Week 2: Models and WMDs

Before class: complete homework for week 2.

We'll discuss the introductory chapter and the first two chapters of the book. Broadly speaking, we'll talk about what a model is, the author's definition of a "Weapon of Math Destruction", and try to spot potential WMDs in various tools and models we work with in everyday life.

Week 3: U.S. News Rankings

Before class: complete homework for week 3.

Broadly speaking, we will discuss the U.S. News College Rankings from Chapter 3 of the book and contrast them to your own experience applying to college. We will discuss some of the specific problems brought up in the chapter, discuss how college rankings (and admissions) have changed in the past decade, and discuss potential solutions to some of these problems.

Week 4: Online Ads & Privacy

Before class: complete homework for week 4.

Broadly speaking, we will discuss online ads and how they impact users' privacy. We will also talk about how advertisers track users in their day-to-day lives with third-party tracking, and how the landscape of digital privacy has changed in the past decade.

Week 5: Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence

Before class: complete homework for week 5.

Broadly speaking, we will provide a broad-strokes overview of what artificial intelligence really is, and its current and potential societal impacts. We will also discuss some particular case studies relevant to UW, CSE 122, and Washington state.

Week 6: Criminal Justice & Fairness

Before class: complete homework for week 6.

More coming soon!

Week 7: Job Search!

Before class: complete homework for week 7.

More coming soon!

Week 8: On the Job

Before class: complete homework for week 8.

More coming soon!

Week 9: Panel & What's Next

Before class: complete homework for week 9.

Coming soon :)

Culminating Activity

Coming soon :)

Community Norms

In Week 1, we came up with some community norms. Here's what we said!

A positive, encouraging community will:

• be respectful to others speaking, through active listening and body language
• be mindful of the amount of space each individual takes up
• ensure that every participant has a chance to share their thoughts
• be encouraging to others when they share their thoughts (and bolster their confidence!)
• actively think about the language that they are using
• respect the privacy of each participant when they share their personal thoughts or experiences

A positive, encouraging community will not:

• allow one person to dominate the conversation
• be dismissive to others or what they say
• demonstrate that they are not listening
• use combative of demeaning language
• share personal details about others

Course Policies

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)
3. attend the discussion for that week.

If you finish all of the above tasks for any given week, it's considered completed.

Our class will meet for 9 weeks in the quarter. This means that students can still miss up to 2 discussion activities and receive credit for the class. Details about the culminating activity will be posted towards the end of the quarter.

Readings and activities for this class are not intended to take up a significant portion of time. The focus of this class is to start conversations and reflections on computer science and its impacts on the world around us - not understanding of the material. If you have concerns about the workload for this class, we strongly encourage you reach out to the instructors to discuss.

Disability and Accessibility

All students deserve an equitable opportunity to education, regardless of if they have a temporary health condition or permanent disability. This applies to both CSE 390HA and your broader academic experience at UW. If there are ways that we can better accomodate you, please let us know.

We are happy to work with you directly or through Disability Resources for Students (DRS) to make sure that this class meets your needs. If you have not yet established services through DRS, we encourage you to contact DRS directly at uwdrs@uw.edu. DRS offers a wide range of services that support students with individualized plans while simultaneously removing the need to reveal sensitive medical information to course staff. However, these processes can take time - so we encourage students to start this process as soon as possible to avoid delays.

Religious Accomodations

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW's policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at the registrar's page on the Religious Accomodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Academic Honesty and Collaboration

Broadly speaking, the philosophy and policy for academic honesty and collaboration in this class mirrors the CSE 122 Academic Honesty and Collaboration policy. Graded work should be completed individually and be your own. Other people should not read or edit your written work (other than when permitted by course staff), and you should not use AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) on graded work in any way.

In this class, this primarily applies to written artifacts: short answer responses to weekly readings, and the culminating activity. All writing produced in this class should be your own; however, discussing ideas and resources is permitted, as is doing external research (with citation).

To be more specific, the following behaviour is permitted:

• Discussing the readings, assigned questions, or the prompt for the culminating activity with others (peers, friends, families).
• Synthesizing ideas from outside sources, provided that they are properly cited.
• Using a simple spellchecker to proofread your work. (for the purposes of this class, a simple spellchecker only makes changes "locally", i.e. at most a handful of words at a time - but does not rewrite sentences).

While the following behaviour is prohibited:

• Directly copying or transcribing from others, including peers, past students, or others.
• Directly copying or transcribing from external sources without citation.
• Sharing your work to others for editing or revision.
• Using AI tools to write, edit, or revise written work.

Note that work will not be evaluated on grammar, spelling, or writing style -- as long as your ideas are clear. The purpose of this class is to better understand your thought process and show that you have reflected on each idea, rather than evaluating writing skills directly.

Citations

You are welcome (and in fact, encouraged) to draw on outside sources when creating your artifacts. In situations like these, we simply ask that you cite these sources. The exact format (e.g. MLA or APA) is not important, as long as it is clear which works are cited and how they have influenced your own work.

Acknowledgements

This iteration of CSE 390HA closely mirrors previous versions taught by Miya Natsuhara, Adrian Salguero, Brett Wortzman, and Hunter Schafer (all centered around Weapons of Math Destruction). Thank you to them for all of their work in building the class!

Separately, this iteration of CSE 390HA is also loosely inspired by CSE 390HA in 24sp. Thank you to those who helped shape the overall direction of the course (Miya Natsuhara, Brett Wortzman, Elba Garza, Lauren Bricker, Nathan Brunelle, Kevin Lin, and Rachel Sobel), as well as those who inspired specific modules of the course (Jen Mankoff and Ben Shapiro).

Many of the other readings, framings, and ideas come from years of taking and teaching classes like this at UCLA. There are too many influences to name, but I am particularly thankful to my peers Arjun Subramonian, Sharvani Jha, Megha Ilango, Kendrake Tsui, and Leo Krashanoff (who taught or discussed these very issues); and, to UCLA faculty/researchers Safiya Noble, Ramesh Srinivasan, Jean Ryoo, Kate Lehman, and Jane Margolis for directly or indirectly shaping this work.