Blog 3 - Generative Research

Close To Me

Inner Circle

People & Family

My support network makes all the difference in my life. My family and friends keep me grounded. People are wired to seek connection, and the quality of those relationships is one of the strongest predictors of happiness.

iPhone

I tend to feel like a piece of me is missing when I don’t have my phone on me. It keeps me organized and connected to the people around me. Also, it’s small enough that it’s extremely portable, so it’s easy to keep at an arm’s length at all times.

Glasses & Contacts

I would be so lost without my glasses or contacts…literally.

Energy needs – Sleep, Coffee, Exercise

A decent portion of my inner circle revolves around energy. I sleep to refresh, and supplement with coffee when I don’t get enough ‘Z’s” (which is all too often). I also like to stay active and exercise. It keeps my endorphins up, and I sometimes feel lethargic if I go too long without it.

Outer Circle

Planner

My planner is my life. It has all of my due dates, events, and reminders in it - I’m a constant note taker.

MacBook

My computer is definitely an important item, but because I can do so much with my phone, my Mac doesn’t quite reach the inner circle of importance. At the same time, I feel much more on top of things when I have my computer to use.

Music

Life would be very dull without music. Usually I listen to it in the background of what I’m doing, it creates a sort of life soundtrack. I usually listen to music that reflects my mood, or to certain genres in an attempt to change how I’m feeling.

Digital Ecosystem

Reddit is probably my primary source of news, information, updates, and other content. I’m subscribed to subreddits that range from world news and business to humor and music. I know that I can always count on Reddit to give me a wide snapshot of what is going around me.  It also keeps the information that I receive varied, and breaks up more serious topics with funny memes or stories.

Facebook is integral to how I receive information. I am connected to Facebook for a significant portion of my day – I receive updates on my phone, and it’s usually running in the background on my computer. Most of the news I get comes from peoples’ statuses and article postings. Facebook is definitely not the best way to get news, but it functions as a good source of personally relevant information because of how frequently I use it to keep in contact with people. 

In addition to Reddit and Facebook, I keep my homepage set to the New York Times website. I usually scan the page when I first open it, and read articles that catch my attention if I have the time. I don’t usually watch TV, so this helps keep me more attuned to what’s going on in the world.

Typical Weekday

When I wake up, I usually check the weather so that I know how to dress and if I need to bring an umbrella with me. The first time that I check my computer is when I sit down in my first class. My homepage, the New York Times, is the first page I see, but I only have a few minutes so I scan the first page and make a mental note of any articles I want to read later.  During my classes, when I’m going to the gym, or cooking, my information search tends to be relevant to my task at hand. I look up recipes when I’m thinking about making dinner, and pull up definitions or related articles to class topics. Sometimes I get off track, but this is generally the case. I access the highest number of information categories during my down time – my break for lunch, and during the evenings when I am working on homework, finding distractions from my homework, and catching up with the people in my life.

Blog 2 - Journey Map

A Junior in the McCombs School of Business, Hailey is a bright student with a warm and bubby personality. She is an only child from Houston who loves reading, experiencing the great city of Austin, and traveling the globe. She is currently seeking a degree in Management Information Systems with a minor in Computer Science.

Hailey began thinking about college majors during her sophomore year of High School. She briefly considered a career in law, but ruled it out quickly after a dull experience volunteering at a law office specializing in claims and litigation. Her search for a major resumed at the beginning of senior year, as college applications grew close.

During this ‘what if?’ phase, Hailey went through a process of divergent thinking, where numerous majors pulled at her attention. She had always been interested in business, and her father encouraged her to pursue the subject. Architecture was intriguing, as was communications. However, there were also paths that she knew with certainty that she did not want to follow. Science and engineering are two such areas that she ruled out with ease. Growing up with a mother who was a biologist and a father who worked as an engineer on oilrigs, she knew from second-hand experience that these careers were unappealing.

At the time that Hailey was filling out college applications, she was only moderately confident in her choice of a major, but she knew that she really wanted to go to The University of Texas at Austin. She had narrowed the list of possible majors down to two, but was still vacillating between business and architecture. While she applied to architecture at some schools, she chose to rank the business school as her first choice of study at UT. She was concerned about getting into the university, and knew that the architecture was extremely competitive, even compared to McCombs. The rank of the UT business school also played an important role in this decision.

Once Hailey was accepted to The University of Texas at Austin, she knew that she had chosen the right school for her. She was extremely confident in her decision to study business, and knew that she would be able to find a major that she liked. However, she did not have a comprehensive understanding of all the business majors at this time. Management information systems and supply chain were completely foreign, while she knew generally about international business.

Taking the core business classes offered by the university solved this problem. In fact, when Hailey took MIS during her second semester, she fell in love with the subject, which made the decision to choose MIS as her major a simple one. She felt a sense of resonance with the subject matter, and found the integration of business and technology particularly interesting.

The next semester brought a new wave of divergent thinking on possible majors and interests. Hailey still knew that she wanted to study MIS, but really she wanted to study everything. She took a computer science class to discern if she wanted to double major in MIS and computer science. She also took an undergraduate studies class on Gothic literature and an English class on conformity to social norms in books and movies, which spurred brief consideration of an English minor before realizing that it was interesting but not very practical (During this portion of the interview, Hailey and I lamented the fact that we couldn’t be students at The University of Texas at Austin forever – there are so many classes we wish we had time to take).

Hailey found that she was very good at programming, and likened it to solving puzzles. However, after attending an information session on double majoring in the two subjects, Hailey learned that she would have to graduate a year late, or take extremely heavy course loads in order to graduate on time. Additionally, she began to realize that she liked human interaction aspect of MIS, which computer science lacked. With that in mind, Hailey chose a happy medium – a major in management information systems and a minor in computer science. She feels that this has enabled her to strengthen her technical skills and become more marketable as an MIS major.

Hailey currently feels very confident in her decision to major in management information systems and minor in computer science. She is enjoying her penultimate year at The University of Texas at Austin, and is currently in the process of looking for an internship in management information systems.