I’ve never considered myself to be a tech savy person, but here we are.
I’m convinced that many in the humanities and social sciences are afraid of technology.
As a student of both, my exposure to things such as this has been limited – some of
my professors won’t allow e-books to be used for class and others don’t know how to use
a printer! With this in mind, you can imagine my shock when first looking at anything
that wasn’t in PDF format.
Why is this much easier than it seems?
Humanities and social science students should not be afraid of STEM. While I dreaded taking my gen-Ed courses, something that is required by my college, I actually had so much fun learning about the solar system and history of Earth – plus I got to hold a real dinosaur fossil! From what I’ve seen thus far, building a website is similar. It certainly can be scary at first but as with anything, once you become comfortable with it, things fall into place.
The benefits of the digital age.
So here we are – I now have a place to share my learning experiences this summer and onward! The internet is able to provide open access to so many things and gives people who may not be able to see or read something in real life the ability to look at it as if they were actually there; for example, just look at the digitization of the Louvre that has occurred or the Van Gogh exhibit that I think everyone has gone to except me. Plus, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have learned how beneficial technology can be. Thinking about my senior thesis, in particular, I now realize that I will be able to interact with a much larger audience if one or both are located online, which makes them far more easily accessible and alllows others to view my work – who knows, maybe I’ll get cited somewhere! Digitization is certainly the way of the future, and while it and other STEM-related topics may be scary to some of us not familiar with them at first, perhaps that means it’s something we should try to embrace.