The CS 485 Experience

What I learned in CS 485

CS 485 (Computers and Society), a mandatory class for those pursuing a degree in computer science at Illinois Institute of Technology, aims to discuss the basic cultural, social, legal and ethical issues inherent in the discipline as described in the syllabus. The class relies on research, discussions and teamwork in lieu of regular course literature; this results in the course being fun, interesting, and fairly easy, should you keep up with attendance and pay attention in class.

Literature on Various Topics

The class is very diverse in terms of the topics for discussions, assignments and presentations. Around 70 topics were presented in various methods. I had a fair bit of knowledge about the ongoing work in most of the sub-disciplines discussed, and I suppose many others in the class did too. However, I knew very little about the history of these topics; this class gave me the opportunity to learn about the technological progression in these sub-disciplines of computer science including future possibilities.

Ethics Scenarios

The ethics scenarios were perhaps the most interesting part of the class for me. The ethical scenarios were ambiguous; part of the challenge was to decipher the paragraphs as a team to find ethical conundrums and then pose questions to the rest of the class facilitating discussions. These scenario discussions helped me to understand that in our discipline seemingly innocent situations could contain ethical dilemmas, and that it is important to address them in an appropriate manner.

Implicit Skill Development

CS 485 contains a lot of presentations and discussions, both individual and with your designated teams; hence, as the class progresses, you will get more comfortable in delivering presentations and working with your teams, while also implicitly improving upon these very important career skills.

Presentation Skills

Public speaking is said to be one of the biggest fears people have. Unfortunately, I am one of these people. However, I want to pursue my career in the business side of computer science; this means that I have to brush up on my presentation and public speaking skills. CS 485, with a number of presentations and discussions, gives you the perfect opportunity to develop these skills. I believe that I am more confident and relaxed in delivering presentations than I was at the start of this class.

Teamwork

Teamwork is one of the most critical skills needed to succeed in the industry. We are assigned a team at the start of the class for the entire semester. I learned a lot about my teammates, their strengths and their weaknesses, and had the opportunity to act as a leader and also as a follower. Working with teams in a presentation heavy class gives you an insight on how teamwork might be in your career.

Advice to students for success and the greatest positive results in CS 485

Attendance and Participation

As the professor must have already told you, attendance is very important in the class! Not only because attendance significantly impacts your grade, but also for other reasons. Missing classes means missing out on team sessions; it also means that you miss a lot of content in the class. Watching and participating in discussions and presentations of other teams gives you the opportunity to take pointers for your own assignments.

Team Coordination

For the greatest success in team assignments, it is vital that team has good communication. I would recommend using a platform like Slack to communicate with team members, set up workspaces for different assignments to discuss and share documents. You also might want to consider allocating time to meet for assignments outside of class, physically or digitally.

Presentations and Discussions

For team presentations and discussions, I believe that it is important to meet physically to coordinate timing, prepare a powerpoint and practice together before delivering the final product. My team and I worked individually, relaying responsibilities for writing parts of team papers or preparing parts of team powerpoints. To coordinate our timing and practice together we met an hour or two before the class. It is important to practice presentations before delivering them.

Individual work

I found it very beneficial to start early on individual assignments. Working in teams, one tends to underestimate the time it takes to complete all the parts of an assignment individually. A lot of the individual assignments such as the book report or the final require an extensive amount of time to research and cannot be done at the last minute. In order to keep yourself relatively stress free, my advice would be to start early and work in bits.

Summary

Honestly, CS 485 is probably one of the most enjoyable class that you will take in the pursuit of your degree. You will get to learn a lot about the history, current projects and future of sub disciplines. You will also engage in ethical discussions where there would seem to be no right answer. You will work in teams and individually. Come to class regularly, allocate an appropriate time to spend outside of the class and have fun!