Reflections on Study Strategies, This Week's Material, and the Code of Integrity

        Per this week's blog prompt, I visited https://www.academictips.org to review the various strategies and tips offered by the site. I appreciate the wide net of resources available; the site clearly is designed to reach students of all academic levels and study types. A topic that stood out for me was concentration tips. As a working student for the last few years, my relationship with studying has evolved to both a marathon and a war of attrition. While my initial years of returning to school were marked by study binge sessions, I no longer can sustain such erratic study habits and now have to learn how to walk away for the day and accept I can't rush through it as I might prefer to. A byproduct of working at a more sustainable and consistent pace is learning how to maintain focus across the longer span of effort, so I can appreciate the varied approaches given by academictips.org. Changing your scenery when taking a study break, and perhaps continuing studying post-scenery change as well, is so important for me. I also tend to benefit from self-motivating by forcibly staying positive and engaged with lectures and reading material.

        Aside from the previously mentioned website, this week has been compelling and challenging in a completely non-STEM way. From various ethical frameworks to a handful of enlightening videos on the ethics of emergent technology and codes of conduct for computer science majors, this week has been deeply philosophical and also illustrative of how crucial an ethical approach to any variety of engineering is. Engineers build the world, and I wish to live in a peaceful and healthy world for all. A handful of the ethical frameworks strike me as arbitrary and dogmatic in a way the shadiest parts of any religion might manipulate an idea to condemn outsiders or non-conforming figures, but perhaps I am accidentally falling into my own spiral of Ethical Egoism or equally arbitrary Virtue Ethics. Philosophical concepts have always been prismatic and subjective to me, which was why breaking into STEM was an important transition to make, the results cannot be challenged if the logic and execution is right. Personally, my core ethical framework is rooted in flexibility and compassion for your fellow life--I believe humans are case-to-case, generalizing anything, including a moral approach, is dangerous. I believe real life compassion and virtue relies on vigilantly open eyes, the self-awareness to question your presuppositions, and the ability to learn to challenge yourself in order to grow for the sake of yourself and others.  Perhaps that is simply Utilitarianism.

        An assigned reading worth checking out for any Comp Sci major is "What every computer science major should know" by Matt Might. This a page I will be bookmarking. I have been gathering goals and challenges I will be tackling over the next two years and beyond and this piece folds right into that as I both want to verse myself in as many relevant physical texts as I do branch into new languages and projects. There are of course a handful of languages I will always want to be quite familiar with, but I sense the ability to rapidly switch gears and hone your ability to learn new languages and tools consistently is equally imperative. My main takeaway from this piece is that I have a lot to learn, a somewhat daunting but thrilling undertaking and I cannot imagine dedicating this energy to any other professional STEM trade.

        A final mention, the CS online academic integrity code is not only crucial for the sake of honesty, but additionally the code is worthwhile for the sake of learning to be the best engineer you can be. This program maintains its position as a respected online school because it produces quality computer science majors and employees, academic integrity is integral to that.