Week Thirteenth

            This marks the end of the thirteenth week of class, which means only two more weeks remain before both the final test and the end of the course. This week shed a lot of light on the character of the class and Professor Downing. The normal stuff occurred of working on databases and learning about SQL. However, we had a reading this week which was specifically about women in the computer science industry and how they are treated and how they are looked down upon if they do not meet so arbitrarily high standards to which males are not put to in the same manner. This type of social commentary is much appreciated because as opposed to ignoring the inequality of treatment of standing women face in the industry, he introduced it face on and even recommended a talk which would further discuss the issue, granted there was an irony in the talk he recommended, because it was the same talk the reading said was an incomplete talk of the issue.

            This week was also the week that the end of the project was due, which of course had its own stresses. However, Professor Downing kept a close eye on the posts and discussions of the students and due to the difficulty some groups were experiencing, he allowed them to have an extension on the assignment. And as a reward and to give his students a rest after completing the final project, he gave the class a day off. These acts show how much attention he pays to his students and how much he cares about both their academic states and their mental states, considering the project was very mentally fatiguing with all the attempts to try to organize the groups as a whole (something which never was fully accomplished due to some groups trying to do their own thing that they felt would make their lives easier at the expense of the other groups). So this gives a good idea on how he views his students and how much he cares about their education and their health, both good qualities for a professor.