UC Berkeley School of Information Student Blogs

IMSA Exploratorium Trip

2008-10-22T00:11:00.000-07:00

Last week IMSA (The Information Management Student's Association) organized a trip to the Exploratorium. If you haven't gone, you should go it's pretty sweet. We reserved the Tactile Dome and crawled around in the dark, and played with various cool things.

To the left you can see an awesome pic of some ice crystals forming in water.

I liked a lot of the magnet exhibits as well.

And ... the giant bubbles are always a favorite, although this time there didn't seem to be enough soap in the concoction so the bubbles broke too easily. Ah well.

Overall, a successful field trip.

Orientation day Fall 2008

2008-08-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a great first day! The orientation the iSchool provided was great. You know the day will go well when it starts with free food and coffee, always important that elixir of caffeination. That, coupled with seeing some familiar faces from the open house, plus a lot of new people to meet and get to know started the day with a high level of energy and anticipation. The pictures they took of us all were very helpful. Going through the list of 10ers on the intranet and putting names to the new faces helps a lot.

The Dean's welcome was perfect, short and to the point: A sincere welcome to the iSchool and Berkeley.

Next up was the group photo. The photographer had all 40 of us on the stairs, arranged by height. It really was amusing, if rather cozy. 'You, turn this way, you up on your tiptoes, you in the front, yes, you who are already the shortest, make yourselves even shorter. Everyone get very close to your neighbor.' We'd not yet had class, but already they were prepping us for Information Organization and Retrieval.

For once the team building exercise was a lot of fun. I've been working in the corporate world for a while now and these are usually not a lot of fun. Either you get team mates who are too cynical to give a sincere effort or the people running the exercise don't know what they are doing. Not this time! I had a great team and we all got into building the tallest tower we could with corks and toothpicks (tied for tallest at 79 inches, thank you very much). Our bridge of hot glue and popsicle-sticks did not fare as well however. Congratulations to team 2 for defeating the machine.

So, to avoid being too wordy, the rest of the day was full of great and helpful information. Panels on careers (the MOT cert is a good thing and one former iSchooler is looking to hire), career services (Meg, Shirley and Lety are amazingly helpful), student affairs (get your MIMS t-shirt), and computing services (remember, treat your IT support kindly and your time here will pass more smoothly).

I had a great first day. My favorite part happened around 3:30-4:00 when we first years found our way to the lounge and started going over our first day impressions (all good) and met and asked hundreds of questions of the second years in the lounge. Everyone was kind, welcoming, and very helpful. It continued as we moved on to drinks and fried food (my favorite flavor, fried!) at Raleigh's. It really set a wonderful tone for my time here at the iSchool.

What I have been doing over the summer.

2008-07-30T10:38:00.001-07:00

So after a busy and anxious Spring semester, I landed a couple of projects that I found interesting and very varied in scope. During the month of June, I worked on a research paper with Dr. Anke Schwittay of the Rios Institute (www.riosinstitute.org). We analyzed the corporate culture of Dow Chemical (specifically their Information Services Division) and made some recommendations on how they can improve productivity, morale, and performance. This culminated in a paper that was submitted to Dow on July 6th. Concurrently, I accepted a position with the XMDR Project (www.xmdr.org). This is a joint effort between the UC Berkeley Water Resources Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, EPA, the National Cancer Institute, and a number of other environmental agencies. The XMDR project is an attempt to develop an ontology in the form of an ISO 11179 standard that these agencies will be able to use to interact with each other and exchange terminology and documents among one another. I am working on a prototype terminology search engine that will enable researchers and users to search terms and display intelligent results from these multiple data sources and terminologies. I have also been offered a freelance web design project by the Rios Institute to develop a site for a network of ICTD organizations in the Bay Area. This is tentatively going to be called the iGuide and I will be using a MySQL backed site and use Drupal to develop the site. Overall, the summer has been fairly busy, but I am learning lots of new technologies that I would have not thought I would use. Currently, I am learning Skos (Simple Knowledge Organization System) for the XMDR project to produce RDF graphs from raw datasets. I have had to learn Ant and Subversion scripts, and become very familiar with the command line interface. This is an important part of my growth here at the iSchool. I will be continuing as a Graduate Student Researcher with the XMDR project in the Fall.

Welcome New iSchool Admits!

2008-03-18T12:56:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to all the newly admitted students! We tried to cram as much UC Berkeley into one day, and boy, was it fun! A little bit of barbeque and scavenger hunt never hurt anyone, and the showcase of iSchool projects showed of a real broad sample of the great work being done here in South.

Thanks to all of those who worked their tails off to make this a smooth day!

New Year, New Classes, New Project!

2008-02-16T21:46:00.000-08:00

So I have been meaning to do this for a while, but I just have not had the time. I am enrolled in a whopping 18 units this semester and we'll see if I am alive at the end of the semester! Actually, all the classes that I am taking are really interesting and I don't want to drop any of them! In addition to the 2 required classes (i203-Social and Organizational Issues of Information, and i205- Information Law and Policy), I am also taking i213-User Interface Design, i247- Information Visualization and Presentation, i290-20- Interface Aesthetics, i290-2- Technologies for Creative Thinking and Learning. I am also working hard on a project that my partner (and fellow iSchooler Pierre Tchetgen) launched called WordSoundLife.org. It is a social networking system for students, teachers and mentors. We are attempting to develop a totally organic learning system from the ground up. As you can imagine, I do have my hands full this semester. However, I always have a few spare moments to help Meg and Shirley out by showing any new students or prospectives around South Hall and our programs. If you see me in the hallways of our beloved South Hall, fell free to say Hi!

ooo, shinies!

2007-12-01T00:24:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all the iSchool staff who make South Hall so beautiful!

Why I love my TUI class

2007-11-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

I took Tangible User Interfaces because it fit with my schedule, but I expected very little of it - and I could not have been more mistaken! It is more inspiring than the best art classes I've taken. I find myself looking at objects in my house and thinking about how and why one might attach sensors, motors, music, and lights - really changing how one interacts with the world and the information available in the environment. My research focus (information architecture) hasn't changed, but my understanding and respect for designers has increased dramatically, and the way I look at computation has been transformed.

Of course, I have to finish my other homework (calculating system downtime, defending project management decisions) before I get to go back to building my rocket/potty-training robot for TUI...

Career Fairs @iSchool

2007-11-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

After iSchool, what? Being well into the second half of the first semester, it was a good time to start thinking about it - full time positions for second years and summer internship positions for the first year students. Apart from the career fairs that happen at Berkeley level, iSchool organizes fairs and information sessions targeted specifically for iSchool grads.
This fall, it started with an information session by the Accenture Technology Labs last month. There was another one by Google organized on 30^th October where three cool folks from Google took us through the product lifecycle of the Google Checkout product.
On 7^th November we had our iSchool Career fair. About fifteen companies participated looking to recruit in a range of expertise including the user experience domain, information architecture and the product management area. It was nice to see so many iSchool and Berkeley alumni coming back to get more of their kind into their companies. Ranging from large corporations to startups, the diversity that we are especially known for, was prevalent even at the fair! Companies like Microsoft, Adaptive Path, Salesforce, Wells Fargo, Zazzle, Sapient, TIBCO and many others took the stage.
Thanks to Shirley and Meg for an excellent organization. Looking forward to having another one over in the Spring semester!

Halloween Festivities

2007-11-04T15:55:00.000-08:00

These last few weeks were very busy at the iSchool with midterms upon us, but we still managed to sneak in some Halloween fun!

The week before Halloween, everyone was invited to the crypt formerly known as South Hall to enhance their costumes at the Monster Ball Clinic. One of my classmates from Tangible User Interfaces used a white cardboard box to make a scary monster head with razor jaws that she programmed to light up and roar. Costume Clinicians made antennae and other fun costume accents out of LEDs.

The festivities continued on Tuesday when the Master's students and faculty gathered outside of South Hall with carving knives and seed shovels to beautify some pumpkins. The typical iSchool charm was found among them all: the XML pumpkin (with the < > brackets, carved by the XML Foundations professor, Erik Wilde), the iSchool logo pumpkin (with the i man), an artistic pumpkin, and a few angry/evil looking ones. They were on display for all to see until All Hallow's Eve when we took them inside for safe keeping.

We can't forget about the day itself! My only class on Wed. is Information Organization and Retrieval, a class required of all Master's Students. I got together with some fellow first-years and decided to dress up as an infamous concept often referred to during our study of IO: the Document Type Spectrum. The idea is to think of document types as points on a spectrum with presentation, content, and structure rules determining where the document falls. It's one of those things where if you took the class, you would get why it's so nerdy...I mean funny. ;-)

Gotta love the iSchool. =)

*Thanks to Ken-ichi for the Monster Ball photo*

Final Projects Abound

2007-10-12T11:56:00.001-07:00

This week’s final project mixer was a great success! I’m thrilled that as much as a mixing session it was one of sharing. No matter if an idea was fully formed or had just emerged, everyone shared thoughts, ideas, and project pitches. Overlaps in people’s curiosities and interests seemed to come out of the woodwork. Even though our backgrounds are so varied, we share many common interests: location-based services, open source and interoperability in health systems, strategies for disaster situation reporting and much more. Nate’s launch of the project wiki gives us a nice place to continue our discussions. I’m excited to see what groups and projects will form!

GAME NIGHT!

2007-10-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite events is Game Night! In I202 (a course about Information Retrieval/Organization required of all Master's students) we chatted in-depth about Wittgenstein's discussions on defining the word "game." Pretty much, we bring any definition of game to the table (literally). So long as it doesn't involve shooting animals in South Hall. Wii, Set, Ticket to Ride, Speed Scrabble, Poker, Guitar Hero, Unreal Tournament, Chess, frisbee... but I personally LOVE Zendo.

Even after I graduate, I'm going to commute to come to these things!

I hate cablecars (AKA, the City Beneath the Surface)

2007-09-04T00:36:00.000-07:00

I hate the cablecars!

I hate the cablecars. Have I mentioned that I hate the cablecars?

The truth of the matter is that Berkeley is perfectly situated. While you are not busy with the world renowned education of Berkeley, you have easy access to the greatest city on earth – San Francisco.

Now there are those among you who might think you know SF. Who might even think that it is ok to call it “Frisco”. Who have done Grant St. Chinatown, Coit Tower, and Fisherman’s Warf, and think they have an idea of what this city means.

I am here to tell you that you do not. The city is in its streets, in its people, and in its weirdness. Now I would not go so far as to say that I am an expert, but I cannot urge you enough to get out there and hit the pavement. Do, and I promise you that you will find incredible things.

Here is something to get you started.

The Idiosyncratic Guide to SF.

It was last updated in 2004, but the spots it knows and the attitude it brings are priceless. Some of the info is out of date, but it is a priceless primer on the neighborhoods and working of the city. Still the best and most comprehensive guide I have ever seen.

When you are ready to go out and find something to do, check these out:

The SF Bay Guardian - Concerts, Lectures, Theater, News, Politics. Sf from a street level view.

The Laughing Squid: Squidlist - Tailor made for the iSchooler looking for something to do. Art, Technology, and Culture.

Check these out, go stomp some pavement, and find the city beneath the surface. You will not regret it.

The Big C

2007-08-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Hiking up Charter Hill from campus to the Big C is incredibly short and offers a nice view, especially at night. The Berkeley Online Tour of traditions mentions the C was built by moving the materials uphill in a human chain by the classes of 1907 and 1908. It also provides the "cheap seats" on Tightwad Hill that overlook the football stadium.

One (super intuitive, now that I think of it) caveat I feel I should mention is you probably don't want to be anywhere near a BBQ before climbing. The smoke from the grill will likely infuse a heavy meaty smell in your clothes, making you attractive to bugs of all sorts. .. either that, or I'm just that much more delicious than my fellow hikers.

From the trenches... first week of school

2007-08-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

Right, so it's Wednesday night of the first week. Whew, feels like Friday of week 3 or something. Most of us have been going to a bazillion classes while shopping for that perfect schedule and, you know, sitting in lecture isn't as easy as you'd think. Then there's the little time in-between lectures - how does it evaporate so quickly? I guess I have to relearn how to actually be productive in time blocks less than 3 hours.

Unlike many of my classmates, however, I think I'm pretty settled by now. It's toughest on the first years - they don't know what many of the class names actually mean, let alone which professors to gravitate towards. I have a year left and I'm going to use it well - nothing to loose really. I'm taking Visualization (super cool with a nice touch of programming), Tangible Interfaces (never done artsy before), one of the Project Management classes (will try the second tomorrow), and do some work for the Law&Tech clinic (intellectual property research for a biotech group). And TA Web Architectures. Hm. That sounds like a lot, maybe I should actually start the readings now.

The Springfield iSchool

2007-07-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

As you may be aware, The Simpsons Movie website has an avatar generator, so you can make yourself anew with a massive overbite and eyes most protuberant! Just what you always wanted! My goal is to have every iSchooler make an avatar of themselves so we can make a big Springfield iSchool poster for the lounge. Please contribute, and add you avatar to the iSchool Flickr group!

k7, does this even begin to deal with #10 of your ToTFBaBIL:P1 list?

The classic question

2007-07-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

So what exactly is the iSchool? I’d love to answer this question with a single word, or maybe a nice link, but, truly, there is no easy response. We are neither multi-disciplinary nor cross-disciplinary but post-disciplinary. We study information and information technology through a variety of lenses: sociological, computational, economic, to name a few. Rooted in all of these disciplines we are synthesizing new directions for the design of technology. Where else could you use case law from a course on information law and policy to inspire designs for tangible interfaces? With scholarship and creativity, our unique iSchool perspectives carve us a nice niche on Berkeley’s campus. I’m proud to be a part.

Artifacts of the iSchool

2007-06-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

I don't think any one story or anecdote about iSchool life can fully encapsulate the experience.
I give you "Titles of Ten Future Blogposts about Berkeley iSchool Life. Part One."

10. Our Many-Tentacled Flickr presence
9. LocalOaf.org
8. The Animated Annual Email Punch-Up (aka the Noise v. Fun drama and Subsequent Life Lessons)
7. Scenes From The Lawn: The Littlest Data-Entry Bear
6. The 'Zine hole (aka, What We Read)
5. Wiki wiki wiki
4. Smells Like Lounge Spirit (at least until we get ceiling fans)
3. Morally Undefeated
2. Getting Your Job On
1. Daddy Gets Snacks, Thursday Makes you Thirsty
0. Never Fully Believe Your Data Source (aka Lists can be longer than you think!)
-1. Two-oh WHAT? Backchannels, Booleans, Borges, Bicycles and Bob.

Welcome!

2007-06-19T15:33:00.001-07:00