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//******************* First Day - August 19th, 2019 *************************//
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- Well, for once, I know I'm in the right place: there's already a PowerPoint slide loudly proclaiming this to be "ENGINEERING ETHICS, PROFESSOR ROBERT ROSENBERGER"
- ...I suppose that's one less mad dash for the door I'll be making this week
- ...and he's holding paper syllabi!
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- "Glad you found this place, because I had trouble!"
- What I'd like to do is just an introduction to this course: who I am, what you can expect in terms of workload and stuff, and so on. That way, you can decide right away if this course is for you before the drop deadline!
- Most of you are probably taking this class for your major's ethics requirement, which is good! It's what this class is designed for!
- Basic syllabus stuff:
- We'll meet here in the paper building Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:20-1:10
- We'll then have recitations on Friday; these are NOT optional, despite the "recitation" name. Activities that're done in recitation WILL be graded, so show up and learn your section number!
- Our instructor is ME, Professor Robert Rosenberger! ("I prefer to be called Robert, but since I know that weirds a few people out Professor Rosenberger is okay")
- He's technically a public policy professor, so his office hours are in DM Smith - "email is generally the best way to reach me in a professional amount of time"
- However, he IS a full-time philosophy professor, specializing in Philosophy of Science ("which is how I ended up here")
- In particular, his research tends to focus on human interactions with technology: how technology shapes people's perceptions of the world, how talking on the phone when driving impacts our experience, how UX impacts our perception of a website's truth, and so on
- "Funny thing about talking on the phone while driving: EVERYONE thinks people are bad at it EXCEPT themselves"
- Another long-term project he's worked on: how scientists recognize "meaning" in pictures, like how a technical diagram can be garbage to one person but an elegant diagram to another, or even how different scientists can disagree about what a piece of evidence "means" (is that weird rock a fossil or a metamorphic rock?)
- Yet another public policy project he's worked on: the ethics of homelessness, and discussing (mostly critiquing) anti-homeless design in public spaces
- So, what do you need to get done if you're committed to this class?
- Get the textbook; you NEED the 6th edition ("I'm sorry!"), and we will read most of it; it's going to be a reading heavy course, with some assignments based off your reading (readings'll vary from just a few paragraphs to several dozen pages in length)
- "I actually don't like our textbook, but it was the 'least bad' of the ones the University System of Georgia required, and I'll complain about it occasionally throughout this class"
- And, finally: what is this course actually ABOUT?
- Well, it's a professional ethics course, tailored towards engineering
- We'll spend 3 solid weeks doing a crash course through the classic "read-old-dead-philosophers" ethics class
- We'll then start discussing some philosophical stuff like "what are we responsible for as engineers," etc., but MOST of what we'll be talking about is hopefully practical: cases when people screwed up, if someone was to blame and why, what you need to disclose as a consultant, etc.
- 2..."myths," or maybe "misintuitions" some people have about this course:
- "I'm already a good person, so I basically already know what this course involves" OR "I'm a good person, so this class must be trying to teach me why I'm NOT a good person"
- I hope NONE of you are sitting here saying "oh, I'm an EVIL engineer, and I'm going to take BRIBES!" - I expect you to already know bribes are bad! We might talk a bit about WHY they're bad, but this course isn't meant to teach you how to be a "good person!"
- Instead, we're more concerned with teaching you about the gray areas, where it isn't clear if something is right or wrong, and trying to wrestle with them
- For instance, do you blow the whistle on your bribe-taking colleague if you think your company would blacklist you for it?
- Now, onto what you've actually been waiting for: grading stuff
- The rough breakdown is:
- 50% homework
- There'll basically be 2 types of assignments:
- 1-2 paragraph questions on the readings, occasionally given as pop quizzes during recitation (e.g. "write 1-2 paragraphs on what your group discussed"); these'll be mostly graded for effort, unless you blatantly fail to show understanding
- "Again, pop quizzes are NOT about if you're right or wrong, but are basically just to check that you actually did the reading assignment. If you did the reading and got the gist, I GUARANTEE you'll do fine on these"
- 1-2 page longer responses where you reflect on a question based on your reading
- 25% midterm (October 7th)
- Midterm will have some stuff from the readings, but'll be more focused on lecture material
- Format will usually be 10-15 multiple choice questions, and then 5-6 "short answer" questions (literally 2-3 sentences each)
- If you can't make a lecture/test for a LEGITIMATE reason (job interview, etc.), tell us ahead of time and we'll usually let you do a make-up assignment ("I got drunk and had a hangover" is NOT an example of a legitimate excuse)
- 25% final exam
- The final will NOT be cumulative, except in the sense that some topics build off of stuff from the first half of the course
- So, you DO need to write to succeed in this course
- Sorry to those who came to Tech planning to never write ever again, but here's a thing: if you're a good writer, you'll honestly become the boss of everyone else. If you can communicate complex stuff like what you're doing and thinking and need done well, that's a VALUABLE skill!
- We do NOT have recitation until September 13th (next 3 weeks) - we need to cover some intro material before we actually get through enough stuff to talk about.
- "So, no class on Fridays for the next 3 weeks! Maybe you're upset about that, but my guess is you're probably not!"
- We will also NOT have class on September 4th, October 9th, or November 25th, due to work trips Professor Rosenberger has planned (in addition to times off for institute holidays)
- And with that: see you on Wednesday!