Reflections...

Reflections on a Digital Civilizations Class.

A digital civilization class is one of the rare times when university education happens to collide with real life.  I stated in an earlier post that I have always wanted a class to help me keep up with advancing technology instead of ancient history. I mentioned how the internet and 'technology' today is just as crucial as the printing press was during the renaissance. And if you don't keep up, you'll just be left in the stone age. So here are a few of my thoughts as I look back over the first part of the semester and review my progress.


At the beginning of the semester I knew of three of my friends that had blogs and I had only been each one once. One of them is named Kurt. I wanted to change that because bloggers are becoming more and more powerful because they are the brokers in this information economy. I began to notice it last summer when I saw a movie trailer. At the end of the movie trailer were critics appraisals of the film. There were the standard, Ebert and Roeper, Rolling Stones and New York Times, but then there were others; names I didn't even recognize that had numbers on the end. I didn't realize it until my brother pointed it out, that they were bloggers!

I wanted to expand my 'digital horizon' and follow more blogs. This class has helped me do that. I noticed that I only have 7 followers on my blog. In a class of 30 people I thought that was pretty sad, so I made it a goal to follow everyone in my class. I was surprised to find that variety of blog experience. Some class members used (myself included) used canned templates from Blogger or wordpress, but others created their own unique blogs and websites.

In addition to classmates I was able to find my friend's from outside class blogs too. Some blogs for class have been tremendously helpful like this weblog on the renaissance. The last post was in 2007 but hey, at least it's more recent than 1807.

Creating a blog has taken more time that I at first imagined. The content is sometimes tricky to put together in a coherent way and adding links and pictures to spice things up and make them interesting takes time as well. The hardest part though is the diligence it requires. Although I suppose that is also the part that I like and I like it because that is the part that makes me stretch as a person. I have to be continually learning new things before I can be writing about new things. One of the things I liked was learning about how Brian Earley taught his mom to connect with his mother inlaw using skype. I also liked to learn how to bring the blogs from class directly to my phone so they are more accessible.

The most meaning full connection I have made to date is with Brandon Muirhead. He is a BYU alumni that is working for an investment bank on wallstreet. I am a Finance major and very interested in working on wallstreet. I learned that he had a blog and began to read it. It was amazing to learn insights of what it is like to work at a major bank in New York. I read a lot of his blog posts then decided to contact him. I emailed him and set up a time to talk on the phone. When we did talk, we was very nice and super accommodating. He offered a lot of advice and good counsel about the job hunt. It was a great learning conversation and all made possible by a blog. By reading the blog I was able to ask more relevant questions and dig deeper since most of my initial questions had been already answered. I'm looking forward to blogging in the future!