Back

The class turned out to be more less “A Letter (singular) of Paul:” we spent the semester reading Paul’s letter to the Romans, at a rate of about 3 sentences per week.

Why so slow? Because we read multiple translations of each of those sentences, and multiple commentaries on them, spanning many centuries — plus a bit of social and historical context. Slow, diligent, careful. And…
2/

We asked, over and over: “What do we think Paul was thinking, given that he chose those words? What do we think each commentator thought Paul was thinking? Why do we think they thought he was thinking that? Does it really make sense for Paul to have thought X? For us to think they thought he thought X?“ …etc. A theory of mind hall of mirrors!
3/

The heart of the course: “What can we learn about what other people are really thinking, about their mental models of the world, by paying very careful attention to the words they use?”

And I thought that course had •absolutely no practical relevance• to my career as a software developer until I started encountering text like this (from a presentation by Lenore Zuck, https://fm.csl.sri.com/UV10/slides/UV-Zuck.pdf, ht @AndrzejWasowski):

4/

When I’m on a software project, I try to listen hard to what everyone is saying, to the words they choose. “Don’t blame me! They asked for it!” is never good enough. I ask critical questions about what people are really thinking, what we’re all hearing each other say, from the start.

I have saved many companies on many projects a whole lot of money (and tears) by using that skill to nip misunderstandings and hidden assumptions in the bud early.

A skill I honed in a Religious Studies course.
5/

Here’s the hidden truth of education:

You don’t know what you’re preparing for.

Your teacher doesn’t know. Your school doesn’t know. Your future employer doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Not really.

Much of what you’re preparing for doesn’t even exist yet. We •hope• it doesn’t exist yet: don’t we educate students in the hope that they will make the world better by changing it? By creating realities that don’t even exist yet?
6/

Doesn’t that mean education is impossible then? Not at all! Because we’ve learned over time that there are kinds of learning that help you prepare for an unknown and unknowable changing world. We can do that learning with joy and confidence in its value if we accept that we will only understand its specific utility in hindsight.
7/

Is a Religious Studies course “for” a software career? Well, is a Computer Science course “for” a software career?

That Religious Studies course applied to my software career in •exactly• the same way that my Algorithms course applied: I rarely use (and have mostly forgotten) the specific knowledge from it. I use its approach, its patterns of thought, •constantly•.
8/

@inthehands This is exactly my fear when people evaluate schools and the courses they choose from a vocational perspective - we never know (oops just saw you address that in the next post - I'm posting anyways as a +1)