I personally don’t feel one way or the other about this topic because I think it is very dependent on the individual and their career path on whether they need to learn coding or not for their humanities major. This is because I don’t think it should be necessary for someone who is very humanities-focused to have to take a coding class in order to get their degree as it is unnecessary for most people in humanities majors.
However, in today’s digital world, there’s growing recognition that coding and computer science skills can benefit humanities students. While I don’t think coding should be required for all humanities majors, it’s worth considering how it can enhance research and creativity. I think that it is correct when Donahue argues that “The objectives of NLP are largely legible, I think, to anyone from the humanities, with or without the ability to program…many of the same questions are asked, and many of the same approaches shared”. However, I still disagree with the notion that computer science is necessary for everyone to learn in college. It’s important to remember that not every humanities student may be interested in coding, and that is fine. Each student has unique interests and strengths and the goal should be to offer opportunities for those who are interested without making it mandatory for everyone. In conclusion, I think while coding is a valuable skill to learn, both as a possible creative outlet and as a useful tool, it should not be a necessity for humanities majors.
As for my own experience with how coding went, it was an interesting but quite frustrating journey. I have never coded before so I think that definitely did not help my experience, however, I think having to do it on my own or with the help of my classmates who were just as lost as I was, wasn’t the best introduction to coding. The one classmate who seemed to know what they were doing was also absent during this time and was unable to help any of us. Regardless I think it was still interesting because I have never been able to code anything before and it was cool seeing how the backend of an extremely simple website can look. It was also cool getting a peek into what some of my friends who are computer science majors have to learn and do on a day to day basis for their work. Overall, it was a fun experience, but I think it would have been much less stressful if I had someone who was able to help me navigate it as I had never done anything like it before and had difficulty understanding problems when they arose.
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