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I believe that Computer Science cannot be classified as simply an art, engineering, or a science discipline as it contains significant aspects of each. Much like how a musician or artist evolves throughout their career and their work can be identified by a signature or common theme in their pieces, the same can be said about programmers. As someone in computer science practices their craft of coding, they find ways to make their code run more efficiently or in a more secure manor. For example, my sophomore year I took a video game programming class. In our first project we were tasked with creating a simple card game in which our code evaluated which player’s card had a greater value and awarded the winning player with the other card. Later on in the semester we returned to that project and expanded upon it by turning a game of “War” into a much more complicated game of Poker. While I used similar techniques to create both games, my craft of creating a game and user interface grew much like how a painter might apply skills from one basic painting into another, more complicated piece. In addition, we often read about data breaches and how we identify what group was behind the hack by identifying trends or signatures in the way they were able to breach a system. This is similar to the way in which we can identify a Picasso painting by way he used the brush, types of strokes and the like.
 In the reading of the article “Programmers: Stop Calling Yourselves Engineers,” Ian Bogst takes that stance that programming is not an engineering discipline. However, he states that, “Engineering claims an explicit responsibility to public safety and reliability, even if it doesn’t always deliver.” I would argue that programming as an engineering discipline has become as important to public safety as traditional engineering disciplines like mechanical or chemical engineers. With the evolution of technology and the treat of data breaches, where identities can be stolen, it has become extremely important for computer scientists to develop secure ways of transferring data. While the work of an engineer designing a bridge suspended over a river that must hold cars and trucks is undoubtedly very important to public safety, it is very naïve to suggest that the work of a programmer designing the security network to keep your personal information safe is less important.

In addition, due to the complexity of computers and how they work, I would argue that Computer Science is as much a science as Biology. Most of the time, when I think of science, I think of how organisms live, grow, and adapt, and that concept can now be applied to technology with the evolution of artificial intelligence. AI will have to be able incorporate the experiences of the past with circumstances that arise in the future using probability, associations, and some form of logic sequencing.

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