Final Exam

Your Final Exam is due by Thur Dec 12 at 11:59 pm.  Late submissions are allowed until Fri Dec 13 but will be assessed a penalty as described in Late Work on syllabus. No submissions will be accepted or graded after Fri Dec 13.

The exam is based on our texts Justice by Michael Sandel, Weapons of Math Destruction (WMD) by Cathy O'Neil, and Brotopia by Emily Chang. You may consult these books and other resources, but please do not discuss the exam with other human beings. Your answers must be expressed in your own words so please continue to follow our policy on not using AI writing tools in any way (as described in our syllabus and reproduced below).

Please prepare your exam answers in the same way you have been preparing your personal essays - compose your answers entirely in a single Google Doc  and then submit a single URL when the exam is finished. Make sure that you have the Doc set so that anyone with the link is an editor. Your version history must show the complete evolution of all your answers from start to finish, so please do not start your answers somewhere else and then cut and paste them. 

Please note that because of the relatively brief period of time available for submitting final class grades (which are due Dec 18) I will not comment on your answers in as much depth as I usually do, unless I have taken a deduction of some kind in which case I will explain why.  My apologies for this in advance, rest assured I will still read your answers with interest.

If you have questions about the exam, please post those to this thread on the discussion list on Canvas so that  everyone gets the same information about the exam. Please allow up to 12 hours for a response to questions.

There are four exam questions. Please make sure to number your responses in your Google Doc. You do not need to copy the question into your response although you can if you find that helpful. Do not of course include the questions in your word count. 

Start of Final Exam Questions

1. [5 points] Write a personal essay to answer the following question. Please follow all of our usual guidelines for personal essays, including the 500 word minimum. Please listen to your podcast. Try to forget what you know about it already and really listen to it carefully (without distractions).  Provide a summary of the issues discussed, and your own reactions to the comments of your guests. If time was not a constraint, what additional questions or follow ups should you have asked, and why? What is your general reaction to your podcast? What would you do differently if you were to make another podcast? 

2. [5 points] Write a personal essay to answer the following question. Please follow all of our usual guidelines for personal essays, including the 500 word minimum. In Chapter 8 (Escape from Trolltopia) of Brotopia, Emily Chang describes a very hostile environment on gaming and social media platforms for women. Why is it like this, and what could be done to change it?  Base your essay on a combination of what our author reports and examples from your own experiences and observations (if you have them).

3. [5 points] Write a personal essay to answer the following question. Please follow all of our usual guidelines for personal essays, including the 500 word minimum. Based on what you have read in Brotopia, what could potentially change in Silicon Valley and the tech world more generally so that women were better represented as a percentage of the technical workforce and also in leadership? Be as specific as you can be, and support your ideas with examples from Brotopia. Please mention the chapters from which your examples come.

4. [5 points] Write a personal essay to answer the following question. Please follow all of our usual guidelines for personal essays, including the 500 word minimum. What do you think were the most important ideas, facts, etc. that you learned this semester in this class? Be as specific as you can be and mention examples of course content that helped this learning. Please mention the books and chapters from which your examples come.

End of Final Exam Questions

Please follow our policy on Use of AI Writing Tools (from our syllabus)

Please do not use automated writing tools like ChatGPT, Grammarly, CoPilot, etc. at any point in developing work for this class. This includes our Personal Essays, any take home Exams, and your Podcast. Do not use them for brainstorming ideas, do not use them for writing, and do not use them for polishing or correcting your work. 

All of your written work should be composed entirely in Google Docs. You may use the spelling and grammar checking tools provided in the standard version of Google Docs but do not use or add-on anything beyond that for any of our assignments.  

Why such a strict policy? I read all of your written assignments and exams. I listen to your podcasts. I do not offload the grading of your work on to a teaching assistant or an automated AI tool. I read what you submit carefully, and I would like to hear your own unique voice come through in the work you do for this class. I genuinely enjoy this experience. These tools obscure your voice and restrict your imagination. They make you sound more generic and less like the unique individual that you are. 

Any work that you submit in this class must be uniquely and exclusively written by you. This means no AI Writing Tools, it also means no cutting and pasting or overly close paraphrasing from other sources (which is essentially what these AI tools do, just in a very fancy and elaborate way). If you submit work that you did not uniquely and exclusively create, you may receive a 0 on that assignment.