WSJ Article About Social Computing + Me!
A few weeks ago, a guy by the name of Andrew LaVallee from the WSJ emailed me to see if I could answer some questions about social computing. I guess he found my blog, either my personal one or the grad school one, and noticed that I was going to be in the University of Michigan SI program.
I answered his questions, and tried to do so without sounding uninformed. I was seriously worried that I’d betray my intelligence and say something stupid, which would be republished and used against me for the rest of my life. Today, the article was published, and luckily, I don’t really sound like a moron, per se.
I figured he might mention my name and quote me or something, but he actually gave my background and stuff too! Pretty neat! Maybe I qualify as being famous now? Anyway, the article isn’t only about me (duh). It describes the increase the interest levels that schools are having in social computing programs. I was actually thinking of applying to RIT, one of the schools mentioned in the article.
I was quoted as saying that social computing was more into real life applications with computer science being more ambiguous. I just checked, and indeed, I did write that! But I later elaborated, saying that the SI was more of a depth program while CS is very breadth oriented, at least at the undergrad level. I think that better captures my feelings on the differences of the programs.
Computer science is a really great subject to get a foundation in working with computers: programming and algorithms. Once I got that degree, I felt like I wanted to do something more specific and less abstract. Now that I think of it, I really meant “abstract” when I wrote “ambiguous.” Oops!
Either way, I think the article is way cool, so be sure to check it out!