When thinking about the topic of reputation, almost any of my Computer Science classes and group projects come into mind. This is because my reputation in these classes usually has a negative impact on how I am viewed when teaming up with people. It is not because of any of my accomplishments or personality, but solely because of the fact that I am not a Computer Science major, but majoring in Economics. It is probably better to say that Economic majors have a bad reputation in the Computer Science department than me personally. It is more accurate to say, that any non-engineering students have a bad reputation among Computer Science majors, at least from what I have experienced.
As soon as I mention that I am an Economics student, my group members, classmates, TA's or even professors immediately take a different attitude with me. They automatically assume that I am coming from a non-technical background and start treating me as such. Although after a couple of assignments and working together the playing field seems to level as we get stuck on the same problems and have to help each other out. I wholeheartedly enjoy once we get to this point because we are able to have productive and meaningful conversations, and get to the task of solving the puzzle at hand.
Although during this semester I do have to admit that I have used this 'reputation' to skirt some of my work in my current Computer Science class. As you know for this class we are tasked with developing an app with our group of 4-5 people as our semester project. As soon as my group members found out that I was a non-CS student the pattern was the same. They suggested that I design the app icon and name when we were dividing up the responsibilities. Because my schedule was extremely busy this semester I did not argue and let them take care of the heavy lifting part of the coding process. Because this is a group project, and the professor allows for groups to have non-programming members, who just focus on design, I decided to "cash-in" on this break and still receive the same grade as them. Although coming in towards the end of the project I have been getting involved and helping them out with the coding portion, it is still nice to be able to use my reputation as an Economics major to my advantage.
As soon as I mention that I am an Economics student, my group members, classmates, TA's or even professors immediately take a different attitude with me. They automatically assume that I am coming from a non-technical background and start treating me as such. Although after a couple of assignments and working together the playing field seems to level as we get stuck on the same problems and have to help each other out. I wholeheartedly enjoy once we get to this point because we are able to have productive and meaningful conversations, and get to the task of solving the puzzle at hand.
Although during this semester I do have to admit that I have used this 'reputation' to skirt some of my work in my current Computer Science class. As you know for this class we are tasked with developing an app with our group of 4-5 people as our semester project. As soon as my group members found out that I was a non-CS student the pattern was the same. They suggested that I design the app icon and name when we were dividing up the responsibilities. Because my schedule was extremely busy this semester I did not argue and let them take care of the heavy lifting part of the coding process. Because this is a group project, and the professor allows for groups to have non-programming members, who just focus on design, I decided to "cash-in" on this break and still receive the same grade as them. Although coming in towards the end of the project I have been getting involved and helping them out with the coding portion, it is still nice to be able to use my reputation as an Economics major to my advantage.
This doesn't sound so much like it is a reputation as it is that a stereotype exists. The CS students and their teachers seem to be "judging a book by its cover," something we were taught not to do when we were kids. If other students (or that LAS Dean you wrote about in an earlier post) don't regard you in the same way, does it really make sense to call this your reputation?
ReplyDeleteI know that we talked a little about this in class, but wouldn't my personal reputation be partly dependent on my the initial stereotype. Although I did after the class discussion realize the differences for what was being asked in the prompt, and what I wrote about in this post. I misunderstood and assumed that my personal reputation included how I am viewed by people who don't know me yet and how that influences behavior of both parties.
ReplyDelete