It's almost been a full week since the last lecture for ProSem, but I am now finally deciding to write my blog entry.

Last week during ProSem, there were a few professors that presented different majors and emphasis. The first speaker to speak was Sathya Narayan. He mostly talked about the Computer Science and Information Technology major (CSIT for short). First he defined Information Technology as "The study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." I was glad he had defined this because before this class I had no idea what 'Information Technology' actually meant. I learned that computer science was the study of structure, mechanism, and expression of algorithms (which is computational thinking). The Study of Computers, aka computer science, doesn't mean you have to study all of those things. People usually focus on one or two, but studying all of them is still a possibility. People who study computer science mostly go into career fields such as Software Programming, Software Engineering, and Computer Research. For all of these career fields, mathematics are the foundation, and that is why CSIT demands advanced math classes. Another speaker who spoke was Young-Joon Byun. Byun spoke more about programming and certain things like that. From both of these presentations, I learned that there is less competition in the Computer Science careers. They also tend to make more money, especially in their starting pay. Eric Tao had mentioned the top 3 places to go if you want a computer science career, and he said they were Washington D.C.,  Boston, and SAN JOSE. When he had mentioned San Jose my heart had skipped a beat because that is where I want to live for the rest of my life. I don't care what people think about it, it's my home and I love it there. Although I'm not a CSIT major, I still think I'll be able to find work in San Jose. It still made me happy though.

The other speaker that spoke was Bobbi Long. I've had her before for my Visual Art and Design class. She teaches most of the print design classes here on campus, so I wasn't surprised she was presenting on the Communications Design major with an emphasis in visual design. First she had told us about her career as a visual designer, which it seemed contained many accomplishments. I had no idea she had designed for so many things and in plenty of different countries. It also surprised me that she even did environmental design, especially with the gas stations. She of course probably collaborated with other designers who specialized in environmental design, but it just surprised me that as a visual designer you are open to different types of work. She then went on about the different classes you would need to take for a visual design emphasis. I had known most of the classes to take because I was thinking about emphasizing in visual design, but something that stood out to me was that she recommended digital photography. I had never thought about taking digital photography, and I think it would be both fun and useful to take it.

I will be honest, I enjoyed Bobbi Long's presentation more than the CSIT Professors, but maybe it's because I'm biased since my major is Communications Design.