Matt Kneiser

Writing Code vs. Writing Papers

Posted on March 27, 2012 at 2:59 AM

I entered college to get a technical degree in engineering, not an English degree. After almost two years of college, I have written somewhere around 3 papers. This makes me really happy because I dislike writing papers on fictional novels. Most English courses I have taken have degenerated into this extremely narrow part of writing. More importantly though, I do not like being judged by another person for a college grade. This reminds me of a book I read, Blink by Malcom Gladwell (a fascinating read for those who haven't heard of it). In it, Gladwell tells the story of the first female musician who was accepted into the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

This story is particularly relevant to my discussion on English papers. Let me tell you the story from Blink. A female musician made the cut for this Orchestra solely because they held blind auditions for the first time. Gladwell goes into a deep discussion about how these musical auditions were so biased. You see, when we watch an individual play an instrument we make all sorts of judgments about the musician. It's human nature, there's nothing wrong with that. It's part of the performance and the observer's experience. Unfortunately for women, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra judges perceived men to have bigger, healthier lungs. This preconception was of utmost importance in an audition involving a wind instrument, where the performer's lungs are responsible for the sound and the smooth blending of notes into a seemless melody. When the judges came to a clear concensus on the blind audition, they were shocked that they had chosen a woman.

In much the same way, professors and teaching assistants are influenced by many intangible things. The name on the paper perhaps. It might even be your use of a certain phrase, or how you look, or how much contact you've had with the professor. The professor is only human and cannot guarantee consistency. It's very similar to art and design, the performing arts, and many other disciplines.

I maintain that Engineering, particularly Computer Science, is vastly different. Mastery of the material comes from solving problems. The more problems you practice solving the better you can recognize patterns. This pattern recognition is the key factor that separates students on technical exams.

In Computer Science, we deal with uncompromising compilers that will yell at you for the most trivial of mistakes. Your code may not work exactly to specification, but if it doesn't compile your tireless hours of labor have produced nothing. This is the distinction I would like to draw between writing code and writing a paper in English prose. When you are diligently working on the last page of your English paper shortly before a deadline you can print off 90% of your work and receive credit for it. Once you have decided on a solid thesis you can safely construct an argument or discussion that is safe from revision; you rarely go back and rescind major points or remove entire pages. You might have to revise your previous work if you didn't plan out your thoughts in the design phase of the paper well enough.

Regardless of how well I have designed a piece of software, when I have written 90% of my code there is very little guarantee that I am close to finishing. Tracking down bugs in software can prove painstaking, compilation errors can prove costly, and redesigning code may be necessary if the software does not perform well enough.

I nurtured these thoughts when I recently wrote a paper for ENTR407. As an aside, congratulations to the Center for Entrepreneurship, #UMCFE, for making such a big impact at the University of Michigan. The College of Engineering recently announced that the Center would be assigned its own course code for classes. The class is pass/fail, so I was not particularly stressed about crafting the Mona Lisa of papers. However, I wanted to present myself well and not mess around with failing a college course.

As I wrote this 500 word self-reflective essay, I was constantly beating myself over the flow of the essay. I had written code that week for over 50 hours so my mind was clearly wired a certain way at the time. After hitting 600 words with a breeze I quickly ran through the entire essay. I was completely stunned. My thoughts flowed well, very little editing was necessary, and the paper was surprisingly easy to read.

Ok. So what. I wrote a paper the other day and it exceeded my expectations. What's the big idea here?

I have come to really like what I do, writing software. I have become accustomed to the objectiveness of the technology I use. It has improved other areas of my life in the process. I see this rub-off effect as a direct consequence of studying a technical field. I wonder, what other areas of my life will radically change because of my focus on software?

-Matt