When I enrolled in SOCI 460, I thought I would be learning about algorithms, digital infrastructure, and maybe some history about computers or the internet, I didn’t expect this course to it so close to home. I had no idea I would end up thinking about the Catholic Church, the masculine foundations of science, spiritual longing, Facebook content moderators, or the invisible ands that curate and control my daily life. More than that, I didn’t expect to be sitting with guilt, grief, awe, and a renewed sense of responsibility.
I came into this course as someone who has spent 15 years working for the Department of Justice. I’ve seen what bureaucracy looks like from the inside. I’ve seen how distant decision-makers often never read the case files that could change someone’s life. I’ve spent hours pouring my effort into something I know will be overwritten or dismissed. That powerlessness? I thought it was just part of the job. But now I can name it—I can see the technocratic structure behind it. And I can trace that structure, as we did in this course, all the way back to the religious roots of Western science and the elevation of the “useful arts” as a kind of salvation.
It was strange—but powerful—to see how deeply connected technology is to old ideas about divinity, transcendence, and power. Reading David Noble was like having someone finally explain the unspoken beliefs I sensed all around me but could never put into words. The belief that technology will save us. That the people who control it know better. That progress is always good. That those who fall behind are somehow at fault. These are not neutral assumptions. They are deeply spiritual, and they serve a very specific kind of elite. And that realization hurt. Because I’ve benefitted from those beliefs too. I’m a white man. I’m educated. I work in government. I carry a certain authority, even if I don’t always feel it. But I’m also queer. I’ve been othered. I know what it’s like to have your identity treated like a problem to be solved.
And so, I live in this in-between place—both inside and outside the systems we studied. That tension shaped how I received every lesson in this course.
Reading about high-tech sweatshops hit especially hard. The idea that someone is sitting at a desk in Nairobi or Manila watching hours of violent or traumatic content so that someone like me can scroll Instagram without seeing horror? That shook me. And it made me think about the parts of my own job that feel sanitized or hidden. What gets left out of reports? What gets filtered out before it ever reaches those with the power to act? Who is doing that labour, and at what cost?
I felt a lot of emotions during this course. Guilt, for sure. Not the kind of guilt that’s fleeting or abstract, but the kind that lingers—that settles in your stomach when you realize you’ve been complicit in something bigger than you understood. I’ve worked in EDI spaces long enough to know how systems reproduce inequality. I’ve spoken the language of “diversity” and “inclusion” in boardrooms, helped draft policy documents, and attended countless workshops. But this course gave me a new vocabulary—a deeper one. It pushed me beyond the surface of equity work and into the core of how technology itself is structured to favour some and exclude others. That realization hurt. It made me revisit decisions I’ve made, emails I’ve sent, and even the tools I’ve used in my day-to-day work at the Department of Justice. I also felt grief. Grief for how thoroughly we’ve been sold the myth of neutrality. That technology is just a tool, just code, just hardware—when it’s so clearly embedded with values, biases, and ideologies. Grief for the people whose lives are shaped and sometimes broken by systems that were never built with them in mind. Whether it was learning about Kenyan content moderators or reading about surveillance capitalism, I found myself mourning a kind of innocence I didn’t even know I still had. But alongside that grief and guilt, there was also joy. Joy in learning—real learning—that doesn’t just fill your head, but challenges your understanding of the world. Knowing that Noble, Clarke, Bernal, and many unnamed others—have been wrestling with the same contradictions, the same fears and hopes. That sense of solidarity, even with people I’ll never meet, was incredibly grounding. It reminded me why I chose sociology in the first place: not to memorize theories, but to understand people, power, and the possibilities of change.
Childhood’s End was a surprise for me. I didn’t expect to connect so much to a science fiction novel (mostly because I am a fantasy person), but Clarke’s story spoke to something real. That idea of transcendence—of becoming something more than human—sounds beautiful at first. But then you realize what is being given up: individuality, emotion, connection. It made me think about the queer community and how much we’ve fought just to be seen, to be heard, to exist as ourselves. The thought of dissolving that uniqueness into some collective cosmic being felt, frankly, a little horrifying. And yet, the novel wasn’t dismissive. It asked me to sit with that discomfort. That’s what this course asked of me, time and time again—to stay with discomfort rather than bypass it. It challenged me to pause, to really sit with the unease, and to explore what it was trying to teach me. It reminded me of one of my favourite phrases: “get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Whether it’s in the gym or in the classroom, that discomfort is often where the most meaningful growth begins.
One of the most transformative ideas for me was the concept of surveillance. I had always understood it in a vague way—as something “out there,” done by governments or corporations. But this course helped me see how surveillance lives in our daily lives. How it is designed into our apps, our workplace reporting systems, even our charitable efforts. Volunteering with Cornerstone Housing for Women, I’ve seen how surveillance can feel like care—until it isn’t. Until it becomes control. And so I come out of this course changed. Not in a dramatic, everything-is-different way. But in a quieter, more rooted way. I ask different questions now. When I hear about a new app or a workplace efficiency tool, I wonder: Who benefits? Who is harmed? What ideologies are baked into its design? I think that’s what sociology does best. It teaches us to slow down our thinking. To pause before we accept the story we’re being sold.
I’m proud of the work I did in this course. It wasn’t always easy. Some readings were dense. Some topics were painful. But every assignment felt like a step closer to clarity. And as I prepare to graduate from Athabasca with my major in sociology, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for what this course gave me.
It reminded me that I have power. That I can use my position—in government, in community, in identity—to ask better questions and push for better answers. It reminded me that being uncomfortable is not something to avoid, but something to learn from. And it reminded me that even in systems built on hierarchy and exclusion, there is space for hope, creativity, and change. This course didn’t just teach me about technology. It taught me about people. About myself. About what it means to live ethically in a world shaped by machines and myths alike
The most fascinating revelation came through David Noble’s “The Religion of Technology,” which exposed something completely absent from my CS 492 experience - the deep spiritual and religious underpinnings of Western technological development. This course went beyond “utopianism and dystopianism” in computing, examining the millennial Christian expectations that Noble demonstrates have driven technological development for centuries.
When I enrolled in SOCI 460, I thought I would be learning about algorithms, digital infrastructure, and maybe some history about computers or the internet, I didn’t expect this course to it so close to home. I had no idea I would end up thinking about the Catholic Church, the masculine foundations of science, spiritual longing, Facebook content moderators, or the invisible ands that curate and control my daily life. More than that, I didn’t expect to be sitting with guilt, grief, awe, and a renewed sense of responsibility.
My most significant realization is that personal transformation and political awareness are deeply interconnected. Caring is not enough—we must critically analyze the systems we operate within, the narratives we perpetuate, and the assumptions we unconsciously hold. I now feel more committed than ever in questioning dominant narratives in my work and creating space for truth-telling, relational accountability, and systemic change.
What I expected of this course would be examples of the most successful social movements of all time and I was not wrong on this count. What I did not expect was that the most successful social movements in our living history were social movements created by massive multi-corporate alliances.
By the time we explored the public relations industry and propaganda, I was beginning to see that nearly every institution I had once trusted—church, school, media, government—spoke a language of compliance. The assigned chapters from A Century of Spin were almost comically dark in how they pulled back the curtain on PR’s role in manufacturing reality. I began noticing it in everything - how political campaigns reframe policy as “freedom,” how consumer brands adopt woke messaging to sell soda, how even well-meaning institutions use symbols to signal virtue instead of engaging in real reform. The Matrix analogy felt less like a metaphor and more like a documentary.
I would like to say that the course exceeded my expectations. The material offered a learning experience that goes beyond the classroom and the examples provided; it is practical learning that the student can apply the concepts to everyday life. This practical applicability is what truly captivates me and makes me feel happy and fulfilled. Realizing that the concepts of social movements are not just relevant to large-scale protests, but also to the small things in daily life, made me feel more connected as a human being and a citizen. It gave me a stronger sense of how I can help and contribute to the society I live in. For me, SOCI288 brilliantly combined theory with practical application, allowing students to link each unit to the readings and their own individual experiences.
Initially, when I reviewed the course materials and the website, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of resources, readings, and course deliverables. It seemed like an insurmountable task to read through everything and internalize and retain the information. However, as I began to dive into the material, I found it deeply engaging, informative, and thought-provoking, which made the learning process much more enjoyable than I had anticipated
If I can be entirely personal in this part of my answer, I would say that this course has given me a great chance to examine the belief systems I was raised in. I was raised Roman Catholic, a faith I rejected long ago, but I've never really sat down and thought about the fear that religion caused in me. This course made me do that. I had to answer questions that caused me to remember the horrific bloody portraits on my grandmother's wall, and the whispered threats of the priests and nuns who taught in my Catholic elementary and high school. I was always afraid. Afraid of the God I had disrespected by not eating fish on a Friday, afraid that I hadn't fasted long enough before taking communion on a Sunday, and afraid, most of all, that I had unwittingly committed a mortal sin that guaranteed my place in hell. What a terrible thing to do to a child. I'm really glad I've had a reason to rethink it all.