Whereas a “fluency” in programming languages should not be required or expected of humanities students, I believe that a basic familiarity with how computer science works and the limits and abilities of the programmer is important for anyone to know today. As the world becomes more technological, it is more and more likely that people working in any field will at some point in their career will be involved in a project with CS components. Some experience with computer science, even if it is not extensive, could allow you to add another layer to a project or even just to communicate more effectively with a collaborator who may be a tech person. I agree with the Donahue quote below: not being able to program shouldn’t stop you from using computer science to your benefit but some basic programming knowledge will help a humanities student navigate a technological world which is becoming harder and harder to avoid.
Thus, students should learn to program, but they should not let their inability to program prevent them from engaging with the computer sciences.
Evan Donahue “A “Hello World” Apart (why humanities students should NOT learn to program)”
I have around five and a half years of computer science experience. I took my first CS course as a first year in high school and have been involved ever since. I came into college pretty sure that I would be a computer science major. But I would describe my progress as slow and steady: whereas I’ve been involved for a long time, I don’t spend as much time devoted to it as many people do. I am also an English major and a humanities student. I love both of these fields for their differences, but also for their similarities, especially how creative computer science can be. One of my largest programming projects, which was done for an internship, was a video editing program, a little bit of which I’ve included below.
#method finding where video begins and ends - cutting out black, red, and blue sections
def sta(url):
#finds video recording taken by world camera
cap = cv2.VideoCapture(url + "/world_viz.mp4")
#the number of frames in the video
total_frames = cap.get
It was a programming project, but the end result was something with humanities implications.
2 replies on “Symbiosis”
I couldn’t agree more with this post. I think that having the ability to read and understand code is more than enough knowledge of coding to interact with the computer sciences. I also liked how specific your snippet of code is!
I agree with everything you said! As someone who feels uncomfortable coding, I think it’s overwhelming to be expected to understand every aspect of programming, but I do believe that a basic understanding would be beneficial in many situations. Also, I’m impressed with your coding example!