Regarding the CS1Q essay due this Thursday:
1. "There are estimated to be some 400 000 people working in computing in the United Kingdom yet the membership of the BCS is only in the region of 10% of this figure. What influence can an institution with such small membership have on the industry?"
2. "The computing profession is in danger of losing the respect of the public, which associates it with apparent fiascoes. Discuss, with reference to at least two incidents reported in the press which relate to failures of computer systems or the people who created them."
3. "Government has an important role to play in bringing the benefits of digital technology to the community. Discuss with particular reference to data storage, processing and use."
I've got several problems with these questions, and everyone I've spoken to has had similar opinions...
Firstly, these are the kind of essay questions that I doubt would look out of place in a junior honours sociology paper. They're complex and demand lengthy and rigorously sourced answers for which I doubt many people (including me) are educated enough in the answering of sociological essays enough to write properly.
Secondly, I don't know about others, but I have two essays for other subjects due in the next couple of weeks together with the usual CS1P work - but mostly, a week is not sufficient notice to write a "five page" essay (no word limit/range was specified for some reason) that can answer these questions properly.
Thirdly, there appear to be problems with the questions themselves. The BCS has about 50% more members than the question claims and of those 400k people in computing, many are in uninfluential (low-paid, you could say) routine positions; the BCS serves to promote professionalism in computing. Question 2 disagrees with the BCS website, the information published by the body which knows how many members it has. How long ago were these questions written?
Fourthly, and this is my main gripe, we've had no teaching on these issues. Was the subject of the cancelled lecture 4b the BCS or the government's role in IT? Regarding question 2, these are important and difficult issues about organisational influence upon industry, about their membership; how can we write an essay on this topic without at least some knowledge of British economics and society, studying the theory of how trade/professional organisations are meant to operate and have an impact on industry, or having any tuition on the subject of dwindling BCS membership?
Do others here have similar thoughts, or am I just over-reacting to some tough essay questions? I can see already that any essay I write on one of these set questions (without weeks of research that would be more sociology and political science than computing science) will having gaping holes in the argument structure and rely on lots of unverifiable claims and positions taken without a clear idea of what I'm talking about... is anyone else feeling in this position?