Coming into this class, I truly didn’t know what to expect as this was a new class and there wasn’t too much information about Professor Kane on RateMyProfessor. I truly dreaded the idea of taking a 3-hour long class, but once I was actually in the classroom the time flew by. The entire feel of the class just felt like a class discussion session about different topics of digital innovation. As a senior graduating in May taking 6 classes this semester, this was a breath of fresh air compared to my other required courses. I’m glad I was able to take such a cool and captivating class for my final semester at UGA.
The overall class work of this course was great and allowed me to organize my work load every week. I’m not really a creative writing type of person, so the blog posts were a little hardier for me to write but it got easier every post. I have never used Twitter before in my life so that was a little stressful for me. Finding different things to tweet about was a little challenging and I just tweeted mostly about AI and ChatGPT. I think taking this class right now was the best time to take it as AI has been taking off a storm in the tech industry. The guest speakers we were able to meet and ask questions to were truly amazing and taught me a lot. We learned a vast collection of information about the market and jobs which is so important especially with the mass layoffs in tech right now. I really enjoyed the flexibility of this class and the ability to branch out into different topics.
I would have to say hands down my favorite guest speakers we got to see and hear from were Dennis Crowley and Sally Kay. Dennis gave great vibes and a truly interesting to about the business world. He was an amazing first speaker to have for the class and would recommend having him again to start your series. Sally was a great speaker to have for this class as she has a bright personality and interesting stories that led her to where she is now. She was an amazing speaker to hear from and gave us a different perspective to the other speakers we heard from. As of right now, I am still figuring out what I want to do for the future after I graduate. Hearing from these individuals, it allowed me to destress that it’s okay to not know what the future holds. We were able to hear from people who were at the same starting point as us. They enlightened us with their knowledge and allowed for us to be able to add them to our personal networks. I especially loved the openness to profanity during the speaker talks.
Although I didn’t really like writing blog posts, I did enjoy reading them. I loved the vast topics that other students blogged about weekly. Although I didn’t care too much about quantum computing or sports, I really enjoyed reading about AI in nature and liquor. I enjoyed looking for the topics that I blogged about and liked how we could pick topics that truly interest us. As someone who works in the service industry, it was really fascinating to research the rise of AI in the service industry. Overall, I grew to enjoy blogging and reading the blogs of my peers every week.
The only thing I didn’t truly love about this class was doing Twitter posts. I didn’t use Twitter before, so I had to create an account. I followed other classmates, Elon Musk, Meta, and other somewhat relevant accounts I assumed would bring me things to tweet about. I still don’t really know how to use Twitter and probably won’t use it after this class. It did bring me about some good laughs and interesting news posts to read about. Although I wasn’t the best at tweeting, the other people in this class were and I enjoyed looking at their tweets.
My final thought about this class- MIST5720 is a great class and I recommend other MIS students to take it. Professor Kane is an amazing professor and probably one of the nicest professors I’ve met at UGA. He is a great lecturer and I see the church pastor in him when he talks to us. This class offers a lot of knowledge and guidance for us seniors as we leave college to pursue different avenues. I wish everyone the best of luck and can’t wait to see what the future as in store.
Hey Elaine! It’s always nice when a class gives you room to branch out and explore things that interest you like this one. I totally get what you mean about the Twitter posts too, I’ve never really been a big Twitter person either, but it sounds like you made the most of it and found some interesting news posts to read. I did as well! I agree with the value of having guest speakers as well, it was cool to listen to their experiences and advice.
Dennis and Sally were awesome speakers! I also thought that the idea of a three-hour class was too much but I’m glad that we got to experience all of this and will continue to have connections we made in this class!
I also thought Dennis was a great speaker to kick off the semester. He really set the tone of being a “cool/laid back” entrepreneur. He was very lucky (and hard-working) though! I’ve decided to use this Twitter account as my more “professional” one, so be on the lookout for what I’m liking and re-tweeting going forward (no judgement if you delete the app, I get it.)!
Great final thoughts. I will definitely rethink Twitter, although it may be better when we’re meeting in person more regularly. We’ll see!
I also enjoyed that Dr. Kane encouraged us to blog about things that we find interesting. It makes blogs more fun to write and for the class to read. The quality of work is higher when students can write about what they want instead of being prompted to write about a specific topic.
I second that about the blogs! I loved reading other students insights and towards the end of the semester there was some crazy stuff being talked about! Definitely a cool platform to share ideas and research and think it could be cool to bring something like this (or the twitter feed) to a future career to connect employees at a large organization
I agree that the blogs were an amazing part of this class. There were many blogs I read during the semester that included topics that I wouldn’t have thought about researching. I also agree that Dennis did a phenomenal job of setting the tone for our guest speakers. Overall, I would say Dennis was my favorite guest speaker from this class.