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My college career began in fall 2004, after I had served a few years in the army and started a family. I began the first semester without a clear idea of what I wanted to do, only a vague desire to study consciousness. During that first semester, as I was exploring my options, I took an introductory programming class in Visual Basic. This was my first programming experience, and although it was difficult, I found that I enjoyed it.
Computer science soon became the obvious choice for me. The field is growing rapidly in many directions, and I felt that this initial training would leave me with a decent foundational skill set and a broad range of opportunities to choose from. This was important to me, because I wanted to gain some experience and learn as much as I could, without narrowly confining my future career options.
Early on, I considered majoring in computer science with a scientific applications option in chemistry. This was appealing because I was thinking that I might go on to graduate school to study computational neuroscience, or something similar, and it seemed that chemistry and computer science would be excellent preparation. After a few semesters in chemistry, I realized that, although I enjoyed the subject, I ultimately didn’t want to focus exclusively on the molecular scale mechanics of the brain. I wanted to focus on mind.
This led me to consider cognitive science. As I looked into this possibility I began to become interested in artificial intelligence. This interest was strengthened in the spring 2007 semester when I was asked to write a paper for a computer languages class about a language that I had never used. I wrote a paper about Lisp, which is a language heavily used in AI. I was fascinated with it. The following semester Dr.Morton allowed our algorithms class to complete programming assignments in any computer language. This gave me an opportunity to experiment with Lisp. I wrote all of the programs for that class in Common Lisp, and was impressed with how elegantly algorithms could be expressed in this language.
The next semester, spring 2008, I took a machine learning class and an independent study focusing on Bayesian networks. Some of this material was difficult, and at times seemed tedious. But, the concepts and the experiences were valuable to me. While studying machine learning I found the same problem that I had found while studying chemistry. The material was interesting, but it was still ultimately not what I wanted to focus on. It was presented as a series of purely mechanical processes, just like chemistry, without any real connection to intelligence or consciousness.
In my current Computer, Ethics, and Society class I have been exposed to ideas that seem to be more in line with my interests. Much of this class has focused on how individual intelligence, society, and technology all influence and shape one another. I was particularly interested in how ubiquitous computing and intelligent user interfaces are coming together to form an integrated and proactive technological infrastructure that is being called ambient intelligence. I hope to continue exploring this theme next semester in a User Interface Design class. The intersection of human action and computer technology is an area that is receiving more attention recently and seems to offer an excellent opportunity to explore, extend, and reshape human intelligence and consciousness.
My undergraduate career has left me with a basic foundation of mathematical and technical computer knowledge. But beyond this, and more importantly, it has helped me to refine my interests and continue to define a path through life that is personally meaningful. I still don’t have an exact career path laid out before me, but I have developed many analytical tools that will be valuable to me in whatever I decide to pursue. After I graduate, in the spring, I plan to continue on to graduate school at the University of Montana.