To start off, I believe that humanities students should learn to code. It is of utmost importance to be versed in the language that you must collaborate with others in. Without this literacy it is impossible for the humanities to go digital or for this class to exist. Something is lost when a humanitarian tells a coder to do something when they themselves do not understand how the creation process works. In order for the humanities students to work best within the world of technology they must understand it.
I am not saying that every student needs to become a coding expert, but I do think Carleton would benefit from requiring all humanities majors to complete Introduction to Computer Science and Data Structures. There are no cons of this and it makes every Carleton student graduating more employable. This is in both best interest of the student and the college.
When reading the articles assigned for this reflection, I feel as though I best resonated with Kirschenbaum writing as he exhibited similar views to my own. In his writing he explored why humanities majors can be benefited by learning to code. I chose quotes that I believe do a good job of capturing the contents of his piece.
“More significantly, many of us in the humanities miss the extent to which programming is a creative and generative activity. Many different ways exist to do even something as uninspiring as writing software to manage a retail inventory.”
Matthew Kirschenbaum , “Hello Worlds (why humanities students should learn to program),” 2015.https://mkirschenbaum.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/hello-worlds/
“Computers should not be black boxes but rather understood as engines for creating powerful and persuasive models of the world around us.”
Matthew Kirschenbaum , “Hello Worlds (why humanities students should learn to program),” 2015.https://mkirschenbaum.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/hello-worlds/
I feel as though these quotes rebuttal some of the arguments on coding taking away creativity that was discussed in our in-class argument.
My prior coding experience is mainly with Python and R (Econometrics, Introduction to Computer Science, Introduction to Statistics, Data Science, Applied Linear Regression) and I plan to take Data Structures & Math of CS next term. I am an economics major so I am a humanities major. Regardless as a humanities majors I have taking a heavy majority of programming/math based classes and teach in the QRC. Taking these classes have made me more employable and helped me secure a consulting internship this upcoming summer.
I enjoyed taking the HTML & CSS beginner classes. I selected the beginner option because I have not played around with either language in a while. I found them insightful and refreshing to look over. I thought that learning how to implement forms in HTML was cool as I could see myself using it in the future. I like skills I see as applicable the most.
<form action="processingscript.php" method="post">
</form>I found these tutorials very user friendly and easy to follow. I hope we do more in the future.
