Petition Letter
Hello, I intend to show, in a subjective or essay answer, that the response has been under evaluated substantially;
For Assignment Two, Part Three I received a 5/8 (C).
The question was:
Section III: How do you fit in this story?
Many of the students taking this course are already in the School of Computing's undergraduate program and may be in one of the streams that could lead to a programming career. Others are not. If you are considering a career in programming, why and when did you start down that path? If the idea of living a programmer's life has no or little appeal, why do you think that is? Do you agree with the conclusion of the report that the Canadian labour market remains unrepresentative of Canada??s diverse population? Explain your answer. mark: 8
My answer was:
The programmer??s life has little appeal to me, if I??m being honest. I am a white male born and raised in a Canadian city, and I am a humanities student. That??s not to imply I am not interested in technology; I love sci-fi and ideas like, artificial intelligence, giant spaceships, and faster than light travel. I find technology fascinating But to me, the appeal of technology has always been the social element: The Prime Directive, the philosophy and ethics of space exploration. These ideas are what I thought this course was about because the description reads ??This introductory course provides a broad overview and ethical implications of technological topics?. But I digress. Programmers, in my view, have a lot more in common with garment workers than starship captains: working alone, sitting all day, staring at a relatively fixed point 30 cms from their faces, not really engaging with humans. One has a sewing machine, the other has a computer, but these jobs seem to me to be isolating, unhealthy, and unsocial jobs. I realize a programmer will employ far more brain power than a garment worker but doing long division eight hours a day sounds like a dystopian nightmare, not an exciting career. But of course, it takes all kinds to make the world go round.
I think the unsocial nature of programming is why these jobs and degrees, as noted in the first study, appeal so much to foreign students and workers (by far the fastest growing demographic in the field). Any humanities student will tell you the hardest thing about the humanities is how subjective they are. Jobs and degrees that are more social require the expert navigation of culture in ways that math does not, making technical studies and jobs far easier to excel at for people with little or no understanding of the geographically dominant culture. Presumably, coding is no different in India than in the US, but writing a novel, or leading a team, certainly requires a better than average understanding of the humans and culture around you, as demonstrated by today's cancel culture, which tolerates few missteps, flattens nuance, and is highly sensitive to aptly named ??microaggressions?.
So yes, the Canadian labour market remains unrepresentative of Canada??s diverse population but that gap is closing, racially speaking. And few, if any, sectors enjoy sex and race demographics that directly correlate with their geography, so another question is whether or not that is a reasonable expectation of any workforce. Women dominate in more social, well-paying (in Canada) fields such as nursing (91%), and education (72%). Five of the eight entertainment billionaires are Black. I agree with the first study that there is a lot more work to be done in the culture of technology if society wants more Blacks and women to work there, but don??t think that is a problem unique to the tech sector, or an unmitigated one.
The feedback was:
Your description of programming and why it doesn't appeal to you is quite engaging. Your attempt to connect this to the demographic facts in the study stumbles a bit, as it relies on some unsubstantiated assumptions (e.g. that coding doesn't involve leading a team - in fact, most programmers at large companies nowadays work in teams - that women are dominant in culture, or that men are on average less socially aware).
My argument:
Since the feedback represents the stated objections to my answer for the evaluation, I intend to show that the feedback is either invalid, or objectively references claims that are not made by me, and therefore is likely to result in significant under evaluation.
Feedback 1:
Your attempt to connect this to the demographic facts in the study stumbles a bit, as it relies on some unsubstantiated assumptions (e.g. that coding doesn't involve leading a team - in fact, most programmers at large companies nowadays work in teams
This is invalid because I did not say there was no teamwork involved in coding, I said ...writing a novel, or leading a team, certainly requires a better than average understanding of the humans and culture around you which is a claim about leadership requiring a greater understanding of people and therfore being more social, than programming, which is a task. This related to what I stated above But to me, the appeal of technology has always been the social element
Feedback 2: that women are dominant in culture I objectively did not make this claim.
I did claim, and cited, that Women dominate in more social, well-paying (in Canada) fields such as nursing (91%), and education (72%) as a mitigating factor to their under representation in tech.
Feedback 3
or that men are on average less socially aware I objectively fid not make this claim.
I believe I have shown that the grading was in error, and because 2/3rd of it was related to claims I did not make, and 1/3rd was a gross misunderstanding or mischaracterisation of my claim, I believe I was under-evaluated.
For Assignment Two, Part Three I received a 5/8 (C).
The question was:
Section III: How do you fit in this story?
Many of the students taking this course are already in the School of Computing's undergraduate program and may be in one of the streams that could lead to a programming career. Others are not. If you are considering a career in programming, why and when did you start down that path? If the idea of living a programmer's life has no or little appeal, why do you think that is? Do you agree with the conclusion of the report that the Canadian labour market remains unrepresentative of Canada??s diverse population? Explain your answer. mark: 8
My answer was:
The programmer??s life has little appeal to me, if I??m being honest. I am a white male born and raised in a Canadian city, and I am a humanities student. That??s not to imply I am not interested in technology; I love sci-fi and ideas like, artificial intelligence, giant spaceships, and faster than light travel. I find technology fascinating But to me, the appeal of technology has always been the social element: The Prime Directive, the philosophy and ethics of space exploration. These ideas are what I thought this course was about because the description reads ??This introductory course provides a broad overview and ethical implications of technological topics?. But I digress. Programmers, in my view, have a lot more in common with garment workers than starship captains: working alone, sitting all day, staring at a relatively fixed point 30 cms from their faces, not really engaging with humans. One has a sewing machine, the other has a computer, but these jobs seem to me to be isolating, unhealthy, and unsocial jobs. I realize a programmer will employ far more brain power than a garment worker but doing long division eight hours a day sounds like a dystopian nightmare, not an exciting career. But of course, it takes all kinds to make the world go round.
I think the unsocial nature of programming is why these jobs and degrees, as noted in the first study, appeal so much to foreign students and workers (by far the fastest growing demographic in the field). Any humanities student will tell you the hardest thing about the humanities is how subjective they are. Jobs and degrees that are more social require the expert navigation of culture in ways that math does not, making technical studies and jobs far easier to excel at for people with little or no understanding of the geographically dominant culture. Presumably, coding is no different in India than in the US, but writing a novel, or leading a team, certainly requires a better than average understanding of the humans and culture around you, as demonstrated by today's cancel culture, which tolerates few missteps, flattens nuance, and is highly sensitive to aptly named ??microaggressions?.
So yes, the Canadian labour market remains unrepresentative of Canada??s diverse population but that gap is closing, racially speaking. And few, if any, sectors enjoy sex and race demographics that directly correlate with their geography, so another question is whether or not that is a reasonable expectation of any workforce. Women dominate in more social, well-paying (in Canada) fields such as nursing (91%), and education (72%). Five of the eight entertainment billionaires are Black. I agree with the first study that there is a lot more work to be done in the culture of technology if society wants more Blacks and women to work there, but don??t think that is a problem unique to the tech sector, or an unmitigated one.
The feedback was:
Your description of programming and why it doesn't appeal to you is quite engaging. Your attempt to connect this to the demographic facts in the study stumbles a bit, as it relies on some unsubstantiated assumptions (e.g. that coding doesn't involve leading a team - in fact, most programmers at large companies nowadays work in teams - that women are dominant in culture, or that men are on average less socially aware).
My argument:
Since the feedback represents the stated objections to my answer for the evaluation, I intend to show that the feedback is either invalid, or objectively references claims that are not made by me, and therefore is likely to result in significant under evaluation.
Feedback 1:
Your attempt to connect this to the demographic facts in the study stumbles a bit, as it relies on some unsubstantiated assumptions (e.g. that coding doesn't involve leading a team - in fact, most programmers at large companies nowadays work in teams
This is invalid because I did not say there was no teamwork involved in coding, I said ...writing a novel, or leading a team, certainly requires a better than average understanding of the humans and culture around you which is a claim about leadership requiring a greater understanding of people and therfore being more social, than programming, which is a task. This related to what I stated above But to me, the appeal of technology has always been the social element
Feedback 2: that women are dominant in culture I objectively did not make this claim.
I did claim, and cited, that Women dominate in more social, well-paying (in Canada) fields such as nursing (91%), and education (72%) as a mitigating factor to their under representation in tech.
Feedback 3
or that men are on average less socially aware I objectively fid not make this claim.
I believe I have shown that the grading was in error, and because 2/3rd of it was related to claims I did not make, and 1/3rd was a gross misunderstanding or mischaracterisation of my claim, I believe I was under-evaluated.