Aporras1 Week 1
Contents
Before Reading the Denning articles
When I hear the term computer science, I think mostly of coding programs for endless possible reasons and how to design processes for computers to complete towards a certain end. When older relatives or friends hear the term computer science, my best guess would be they would be thinking of the study of how computers work. I would guess more so in the physical sense and less in the world of networks and programming. I think my friends would have similar thoughts come to mind in terms of networks, the internet, and programming/coding come to mind when they think of computer science because we grew up with computers in our households.
Before Reading the Janovy chapter
When I think about biology, the study of life and intricate biological systems comes to mind. Life overall represents the beautiful product that is made by the intricate and time-tested biological systems. By biological systems, I hope to encompass the aspect of biology that takes apart the larger picture of what it means for something to be a living organism. Just as importantly, Charles Darwin definitely comes into mind when thinking about biology. With all honesty, I wouldn't consider myself a biologist. I would more so consider myself an aspiring biologist in the sense that I would hope to one day be able to take part in or contribute research within the biology field.
After Reading the Denning articles and Janovy chapter
After reading the Denning articles and the Janovy chapter, answer the following questions:
What did you find most interesting or provocative about the Janovy reading? What does it mean to be a biologist? Do you consider yourself a biologist? Why or why not?
After reading, the two authors left me with mixed thoughts on both biology and computer science. However, with this mixing came an important realization that these fields aren't as rigid and defined as I had originally thought. Study of either of these areas isn't strictly defined by the classroom in the sense that there are endless opportunities outside of lecture halls however best professors attempt to prepare us with the most relevant information. Both of these authors loosened my rigid thoughts and hopefully this flexibility and openness will be applicable throughout the course. In our daily lives, I think communication is easiest to apply because of our human ability to communicate to other humans both verbally and through nonverbal expressions. What's most interesting is that we have learned these communication skills naturally through time. For example, if someone frowned and clenched their fists, you would interpret this as someone expressing anger and therefore communicating nonverbally through body language. At a young age we understand basic language without significant formal teaching. Communication, in these two senses, interests me the most compared to the other six principles.
My understanding, from Janovy's reading, is a biologist has the ability to make observations of the world they live in and bring those observations into a framework of original thought. One can consider their framework to be their experiences gained at a young age similar to Janovy's. Doing this means observations affect their worldview and biologists' view isn't narrowed further when it should be expanded and increased. Instead of answering yes or no to whether or not I would consider myself a biologist, I instead consider myself an aspiring biologist and have a growth mindset in the sense that I want to increase my view of the world we live and share with other organisms. This mindset allows for limitless boundaries and prevents myself from attempting to strictly define what it means to be a biologist.
Aporras1 (talk) 19:30, 4 September 2017 (PDT)
Acknowledgements
- John Lopez and I met outside of class in case either of us had any questions in formatting our user pages, journal entry pages, or templates. We also texted in order to communicate beforehand if we had any questions prior to meeting.
References
- Denning, P. J. (2008). The profession of IT Voices of computing. Communications of the ACM, 51(8), 19-21.
- Denning, P. J. (2007). Computing is a natural science. Communications of the ACM, 50(7), 13-18.
- Janovy, J. (2004). On becoming a biologist. U of Nebraska Press.
- LMU BioDB 2017. (2017). Week 1. Retrieved August 29, 2017, from https://xmlpipedb.cs.lmu.edu/biodb/fall2017/index.php/Week_1
