Should Humanities Students Study CS?

Vanessa
Mon, 26 Sep 2022 02:14:11 +0000
Lab Assignment, Week 2, Coding, Computer Science, Digital Humanities

Exploring the intersection between computer science and humanities reveals not only the potential these fields hold, but also the level of complexity each of these subjects hold individually. For that reason, specializing in one, and then combining talents, would be the most effective way to incorporate technology into the humanities. Despite this, stating that humanities students should never learn to code is an extreme, but it draws the question, how substantial of a project could a beginner coder create? Nevertheless, humanities students could benefit from learning how to enact stylistic choices, but it remains that the logical and STEM heavy components of computer science are vital to creating a digital project.

“The computer sciences and the humanities are both engaged in the process of developing the very same models”

It can be argued that while CS and humanities students strive to create the same models, the mediums in which they create are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Humanities students shouldn’t have to compromise their efforts for the sake of incorporating tech into their work. While it’s important that students learn about studies outside of their own for self-improvement, applying this mindset to research can be unproductive, but also demanding.

As an aspiring CS major, I find effective programming to be a demanding task in itself. At the same time, it has a lot of potential to result in modern and creative projects. But, exploring this creativity would be easier alongside someone focused on the humanities.

In contrast, computer science requires a great amount of logical thinking as well. This is seen in how digital humanities projects often use machine learning, AI, database APIs, and more external software that I still know virtually nothing about, despite having taken five CS classes so far.

This below is a look into my take on trying the intermediate CSS tutorial, and while it wasn’t particularly difficult, it still took time to read documentation and then understand/enact what specific tags meant. I can only imagine how much longer it would take someone not studying CS to work with.

body {
    font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
    font-size: 12px;
    color: black;
    background-color: lightblue;
    margin: 20px;
    padding: 0;
}


p {
    line-height: 19px;
}

h1 {
    color: white;
    background-color: pink;
    font-size: 3em;
    margin: 0;
    margin-bottom: 7px;
    padding: 4px;
    font-style: italic;
    text-align: center;
    letter-spacing: 0.5em;
    border-bottom-style: solid;
    border-bottom-width: 0.1em;
    border-bottom-color: white;
}

h2 {
    color: white;
    background-color: darkblue;
    font-size: 1.5em;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 2px;
    padding-left: 14px;
}

h3 {
    color: blue;
    font-size: 1.25em;
}

img {
    border-style: dashed;
    border-width: 7px;
    border-color: pink;
}

Overall, the dedication and time commitment it takes to learn web development may only prevent humanities students from further improving upon their respective field.