Stanford CS Curriculum 2021
Given the power tech has over the daily experiences of billions and how many questions of values and ethics it is now directly confronting in society, I&#x27;m a little surprised there&#x27;s just one ethics course and one law course that cover these subjects, and they&#x27;re electives [1].<p>We all know much of the learning in engineering is on the job anyways, so the role of formal education is less about particular job skills and more about building foundations for understanding - exactly the time and place to teach ethical frameworks and other critical interfaces with society.<p>Ten years later you may not remember the details, but at least you&#x27;ll remember there&#x27;s some kind of ethical framework or lesson that explains why a course of action your boss is considering might not be right or has implications they&#x27;re not considering. The world needs more of this kind of awareness from CS grads. Not suggesting this be a major part of the curriculum, but just maybe we could go from 0 required courses covering this to 1 or 2.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.stanford.edu&#x2F;class&#x2F;cs182&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.stanford.edu&#x2F;class&#x2F;cs182&#x2F;</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;5harad.com&#x2F;mse330&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;5harad.com&#x2F;mse330&#x2F;</a> Yes, STS (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sts.stanford.edu" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sts.stanford.edu</a>) exists, but again that&#x27;s elective and thus involves sacrificing opportunities to take those courses.<p>EDIT- see epoch_100&#x27;s link here about Stanford CS embedding ethics throughout the curriculum, which seems to address this concern: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hai.stanford.edu&#x2F;news&#x2F;building-ethical-computational-mindset" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hai.stanford.edu&#x2F;news&#x2F;building-ethical-computational...</a>