Bowen Zhang

ETHICS PAPER

            According to Investopedia, Code of Ethics is a set of guides designed by originations to assist members understanding right and wrong and doing their work honestly and integrity. For the engineers from electrical engineering, we mainly follow the IEEE Code of Ethics. As future engineers, we will have a strong impact on our society, so it is important to make the right decision as many as possible. However, there are some situations that it is hard for us to say what is right and what is wrong, then look up the Code of Ethics is a good choice to help ourselves.

            We talked about a student’s personal concerns in class. He is a student in CprE 288.  In one of his Friday's classes, there was only a few people show in that class, so the instructor decided to give them some extra credits by doing a small assignment online. But he has some friends who was not in the class that time, so he was wondering that if he should tell his friends about the place to do the small assignment to earn some extra credits. He said that they were his close friends that he wanted to help them, and maybe they would also help him in the future. But it he helped his friends, it would make it unfair to other student who attended the class. I think this is a great example of the confliction between ethics and personal relationships. In that class, some students thought that he should not tell his friends, while other students said he should tell his friends. The professor in our group thought that extra credits is a way to encourage students to attend classes, and he would recommend the student to tell his friends that there will be extra credits later if they attend the class.

            There are six virtues in the Virtue of Ethics, including integrity, honesty, fidelity, charity, responsibility, and self-discipline. I think integrity, honesty, and self-discipline are most related to our problem we discussed in class. Integrity should be that only the students who attended the class could get extra credits. If he tells his friends about the extra, he will be not honest to his professor. Last, self-discipline is about going to every class and finished homework and exams on time.