Algorithms is one of the last classes most CS students take at my UNI. So of course the last couple of days is filled with guest speakers. One of the was a jew talking about racist algorithms in software engineering and racist cameras.
I kept asking pointed questions, pointing out his false assumptions, and generally making a joke out of his presentation. I even got the class to laugh a few times. Do note though, the class was almost entirely white men as this was one of the final, and most difficult, of the CS classes. And you knew the two diversity hires and how they got there (not by merit!).
I later learned that the after-class questionnaire surveys asked why that guy was even there in the first place so often that next year he wasn't asked to join the guest speaker list.
I took that my algorithms class in second year, I thought it was really fun, just the right balance of math and creativity. But yeah, someone always manages to wedge politics into it somewhere. Such a shame.
It was my favorite class. Lots of slick algorithms people have come up with.
We mostly stuck to sorting algorithms and search algorithms, same classes also covered data structures up to trees and graphs. I would've liked to keep going tbh. The modules after that have been very fluffy.
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