Last Call

I can’t believe the end of this semester (and college) is already upon us. I remember hesitantly registering for this class in November because of how late and long it was, but after the first day, I knew #MIST5720 would end up being my favorite college course. I always got really frustrated at the beginning of college from being required to take classes about information I already learned in high school with unnecessarily difficult assignments that clouded my ability to truly learn. This is why I was very excited coming into this class because I came to UGA to expand my knowledge and perspective by learning from my professors and my peers, and that is exactly what this class gave me. Nearly every week, I would take what I had learned from our class discussions and from the guest speakers and have conversations with my non-MIS friends about their knowledge and opinions on each topic. This is something I have only done when I am genuinely interested and excited about new information that I want all of my friends to be in on it. One thing I thought was so cool was watching the hype cycle of AI play out in real-time throughout the semester. I started using ChatGPT a few weeks after it was released, and even months later there were still people I talked to that hadn’t heard of it. Now, there are thousands of new AI tools being released each week and everyone is aware of at least ChatGPT. I am definitely very grateful to be in a major and in a class where I was introduced to AI early and can leverage the skills and knowledge I have learned in my future endeavors.

As far as guest speakers go, I don’t know about y’all, but I feel like being able to say I not only got to interview the CEO of a major company but also got to pick the brains of a couple dozen other respected and successful professionals is kind of a flex. Dennis Crowley started us off strong and validated my desire to travel and do something fun right after college instead of immediately entering the workforce. He said and I quote, “The most interesting people are not the ones who go right into the rat race”. He also told us that Luck = Opportunity + Preparation. I think this is such great advice not only in relation to your career or ideas but for life in general. If you really want something whether it be a job, a trip, a relationship, or whatnot, you have to spend time getting yourself prepared and constantly put yourself in a position to receive opportunities. Bill VanCuren and BJ Schaknowski both had similar advice saying that moving laterally within your company is just as, if not more beneficial than moving upwards. By changing to a different area, you are improving your general skill set thus preparing you better for a higher position because you will have knowledge of all the work being done by teams below you. I feel like MIS is sort of a lateral major in that sense because we have learned about finance, marketing, management, and leadership, as well as business processes, data analysis, coding, and now, digital innovation and entrepreneurship.

I think the biggest theme I noticed between all of the speakers we had was the importance of community and shared values in a company. It is all about the people. When you are working forty hours a week with the same people every week whether it is online or in person, you have to enjoy working with those people and all have a common goal as well as a desire to be there. I have had several different jobs in my life and have seen how the community and work ethic of the people around me has affected my mood and my own work ethic, whether I liked the work I was doing or not. It was also interesting to see the different views on remote vs. in-person companies. I always thought I would really enjoy working remotely, but after doing a remote internship this summer, I realized I don’t have enough responsibilities at home yet to need to be there all the time and got very bored very quickly, although I enjoyed being at the company. I do appreciate the work-life balance that remote work promotes and every guest from a remote company said that their employees really enjoy it, but my conclusion after hearing all of the speakers is that it is best to work in person (or at least hybrid) in the first few years of your career to make connections and gain better experience, then switch to remote when it feels best.

In the end, all I really have to say is I am so glad that I was at UGA at the right time to take this class because it really reminded me of how much I used to enjoy learning in elementary school when I wasn’t stressed about my grades and was learning about topics I had never learned about before. I am excited to take all the knowledge and skills I have gained in this class and apply them going forward, and to always remember that learning is actually fun. Especially now that school is over and I don’t have to worry about grades ever again 🙂