I Am Candid - Daniel
My Major: Computational Media (CM)
What attracted me to my major?
Computational Media is a great program, I love it. Perhaps I'm even...in love with it? If so it must be of the unrequited sort, as were it a woman she would be far out of my league.
The versatility of Computational Media is what did it for me- and the fact it was new and untested. The idea of merging a technical, computing degree with the liberal arts is an intriguing concept. While still getting your hands dirty and becoming intimate with the guts of the machine, you're also given room to explore and dwell on the possibilities of those varied circuits at your disposal. Where else can you go from UML to iambic pentameter to linear algebra to Fluxus in a days time? Plenty of places, probably, but Georgia Tech does an admirable job of it.
After learning of CM, I applied to no other schools. And while that was probably more an unkind mix of arrogance and laziness, it seems to have worked out fairly well. So we can all pretend it to be a symbol of an early appreciation for what has turned out to be an interesting and useful educational experience.
What classes would I recommend within Computational Media?
It's hard to go wrong, but Media Device Architecture, otherwise known as the 'Gameboy Class', seems to be a favorite of many students. As you can guess, the class involves creating various games for the Gameboy Advance- which is awesome. Or at least as close to awesome as programming gets. Also, from a design perspective it's somewhat liberating to have all your computing resources right there in front of you in a very compact and accessible form.
Besides that there's the CM intro course where you get to play around with a variety of different languages and coding environments, the upper level graphics and animation programming classes are great, there's game design courses, film study, artificial intelligence, special effects- various subjects that may not appeal to all, but if you're frothing at the mouth it probably means you're either in CM, or should seriously consider it.
Recently I started a new student organization called Humanitech…
The idea is to take students with skills in computing and connect them to humanitarian organizations around Atlanta to provide support in their digital efforts, education in using technological resources, and to help fuel innovation in how we confront these issues facing our community. It gives the students real world experience and some quality heft to their portfolio while providing a real, and needed, service to the community. We are newly formed, so there's still a distance to go before the group really gets to the action, but there's a great deal of potential for what we can accomplish with it.
What do I see myself doing in the future?
My dream career would be human-oriented, challenging, dynamic and, if possible, one with good opportunities for adventure. I've been looking into the Peace Corps, particularly their relatively new programs in computers and technology. Diversity is a resource and there are plenty of places in the world with undeveloped potential. I imagine a life spent confronting this inequity and the suffering which results would be one well spent.
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