I wasn’t sure how to write this, but I knew it would undoubtedly include how this class was truly eye-opening to the digital innovation occurring in our lives. This knowledge should be passed on to newer grads as it can be extremely valuable. The class is set up more for sophomores and juniors, giving them the opportunity to connect with guest speakers and maybe get an internship or job out of it. However, it also helped us seniors by providing knowledge from others to take into the real world.
The course also provided opportunities for students to connect with each other, whether through GroupMe, Twitter, blog posts, or in-class discussions. I believe the Ted-Talk videos helped cultivate new ideas and gave interesting perspectives from various students, even those in the same group.
Guest speakers as well gave everyone the opportunity to understand how to ask good, thought-provoking questions. It may have also helped that some of the guest speakers were some of the most interesting people we’ve gotten the opportunity to talk to. When I got to talk to Lucas Puente from Slack, it showed a level of interest in the Silicon Valley industry and how he transitioned from the University of Georgia to the San Francisco Bay area. He gave us the perspective of data that none of us knew, that it would negatively impact productivity if the employees were forced to go back to work in person, and the data proves it.
In terms of some of my favorite guest speakers, a few that come to mind are Dennis Crowley and Daniel Saks. Funnily enough, they were the first and last guest speakers. Dennis was absolutely awesome, and he opened up about how he continued to try and told us to find our purpose and pursue it to the fullest extent. Maybe it was his startup background that was truly inspiring and really grasped my attention. Daniel Saks was also interesting. He had a startup background, but unlike Crowley, he was able to maintain a role in the suite and made points about focusing on the mind, body, and soul, rather than crashing and burning and beating yourself up about working the hardest. Because if your mind isn’t right, you won’t be able to produce your best work.
Twitter was often a place that harbored funny memes, interesting articles, or some hot takes. I think what obviously took the cake for the most talked-about topic of the semester was generative AI, whether it be ChatGPT, travel itinerary, or the new Snapchat AI. Snapchat’s new AI, known as MyAI, has received lots of feedback, and it’s not good. The majority of people I know are currently trying to get rid of it as it stays pinned to the top of their feed, and you are unable to delete it. Some of the more interesting topics I could remember were Erica Degue reposting the AI covers of rappers and various other artists and how real they sounded. Now, labels are seeking to ban this from happening altogether as they aren’t able to make a dime off of the content. Dr. Kane also posted an interesting article about a UGA student who was involved in stealing over 50,000 bitcoins, which at the time was worth $600,000 and is now worth $3 billion. This article is 100% worth a read, and I’ll link it here: https://t.co/ADzZT2P4vH.
Also, can’t forget the AI discussion Fernando and I had at Cutters.
Moving on to blog posts, I think it was always cool seeing the evolution of our blog posts, going from generic topics was refreshing. A couple of posts that I always seemed to read were ones involving sports. It was always something that I was interested in, so it made sense for me to click on them, and wow, they have certainly changed. We’ve seen topics like statistics and how they have played an impact on the future of sports or the new technologies that are benefiting the accuracy of the game. Some of my favorites in this specific category were Val’s Evolving Technology in Sports post, which gave great insight at the beginning of the semester.
I also know Nick Vetrano made an interesting post about Generative AI and its impact on one of the largest sources of entertainment. Video games are no doubt extremely hard to produce and take tons of time to provide an insane amount of attention to detail. A topic like this is easy to understand and has made a ton of headlines in the news due to its sheer relevance of the topic.
One of my favorite posts by far was Spencer Shippel’s AI in Deep Fake Technology. It was also extremely relevant and made for a funny meme that was also applicable to the course. The whole idea of this technology is scary, and more than likely can be used for more harmful rather than comedic purposes, as we’ve seen recently. He also went in-depth explaining the technology of deep fakes, and it gave a unique perspective on this idea.
I’d also be interested to see some blog posts that Dr. Kane has seen over the past 15 years of teaching this course and maybe some of his favorites. It could be a discussion of what students wrote a long time ago, what technology actually ended up panning out, and the others that maybe fizzled out.
Anyways, thank you to everyone for making this such an awesome class, probably one of my favorites, despite it being 3 hours long.
Nice summary of the class, Connor! I also agree that, regardless of the three hour long class, this will go down as one of my favorite classes at UGA. I really enjoyed the wide range of content that we were exposed to. From tweets to guest speakers to blog posts, each experience taught me something new and different. I think the class mimics well how to continue to learn outside of class. I never viewed Twitter as a way to learn about emerging technology prior to this class, but I want to continue using it as that kind of resource.
Hey Connor, you wrapped up the class pretty well. From the Twitter posts to the blog, it was great to stray from the original class setup with tests and etc… and experience something new. There were endless amounts of knowledge to gain from this class and I would say that the guest speakers were my favorite part of it. It’s not every day that you’re able to speak with well-established entrepreneurs and venture capitalists every week. With this, I can say that MIST 5720 has been my favorite class at UGA.
Great summary of the class! I liked how you mentioned specific tweets, blog posts, and guest speakers that stood out to you. Dennis was also one of my favorite speakers. He set the bar high for the rest of the semester! This class provided such an awesome opportunity to network with individuals and give our class the insider scoop of the tech industry.
I totally agree with the statement you made on how our blogs developed. I remember at the beginning of class being a bit worried about blogs and Twitter. But quickly, both became casual and the topics became increasingly creative and interesting. I loved watching that growth and honestly wish it had happened sooner because there were some fascinating reads, but I absolutely loved this class and happy we got to the point we did.
Hey Connor! I loved how you summarized this class! I strongly agree with what you said about the blog posts, mentioning how there were so many genres involved. I honestly feel like this is what made the blog posts fun to read, because there were so many different topics that people were blogging about so each blog post I read, I learned something different!
Great wrapup. Glad to have you in the class!