Interview
An interview with a professional in my field.
Background
For my HON-H 200 Introduction to Honors class, I had to interview an honors alum, faculty member, or professional in my field to learn how to make the most of my honors experience. At the time of this writing, I work at Indiana University Indianapolis Division of Undergraduate Education as a web development intern. For this assignment, I chose to interview my supervisor, Holly Fross, Web and Digital Specialist, since I knew she had completed her undergraduate at IUPUI and had been working at Division of Undergraduate Education since she was a student, and with Honors College, the Record, ePortfolio, and Institute for Engaged Learning all being units of Division of Undergraduate Education, I was hopeful she'd have more insights into how I can make the most of my honors experience.
Interview
Holly's interest in web development began at a career center in high school when she took a web development class. This led to her majoring in computer science at IUPUI, now Indiana University Indianapolis. She found computer science to be too technical to her at the time, and learned about Media Arts and Science and it's Web Development Specialization, which is much less technical, focusing on just front-end and back-end web development.
During her undergraduate degree, Holly had many project-based learning experiences, some even involving real-world clients, which were all super good experiences. Also during her undergraduate degree, she worked at Division of Undergraduate Education as a web development intern, the same position I work in now. Through Luddy's accelerated bachelor's and master's program Holly was able to also complete a master's in Media Arts and Science in only an extra year, which she felt was helpful but not necessary in this field.
My Takeaways
From this interview, I learned that having lots of engaged learning experiences during my undergraduate degree will be very important, especially for finding future employment. Holly emphasized the importance of these and having projects.I also asked Holly her thoughts about how the field will change. She said that like many jobs in the industry, everything is always changing. You might be developing for a variety of devices, working with internet of things, and while she was skeptical about AI, she mentioned that others believe it will also change the field lots.
From this, I've learned that I should continue enhancing my skills outside of classes and my job to make sure I am aware of new trends and remain a good candidate for job opportunities.