Hello world! My name is Michael McRoskey and I’m a senior Computer Science student at the University of Notre Dame. Originally from San Diego, I have six older siblings–5 of which went to ND before me. I enjoy doing creative things like taking photos and making videos. You can check out my personal website and portfolio here. This past summer, I interned at Google as a Technical Program Manager in the Google Cloud Platform team, working on Cloud Router and Cloud Load Balancing features.
As a freshman, I started out as a Mechanical Engineer, but by the end of the year, I had found my major: Computer Science. I chose to study Computer Science for a couple of reasons. First, I enjoy solving problems and coding has a particular ability to do that in today’s world. Second, I had always been interested in technology, computers, and coding–Computer Science seemed like the perfect fit. Finally, I was attracted to the laid-back lifestyle in the industry, having seen my brother work in it for a couple years.
I hope to form some solid opinions on some of the difficult topics we will discuss in class. I have a strong ability to see both sides of an argument but often that can be paralyzing when actually making decisions. I think the most pressing ethical issue facing Computer Scientists today–and the topic I’m interested in discussing–is how to be stewards of information. What does this mean? Most of the world’s information is produced, stored, and consumed on devices. Code can thus grant and prevent access to it, and fail in doing so. Code can also alter that information, or cherrypick what gets shown. As writers of code, we need to be aware of this possible distortion and work to correct it.