Energy Capture

Two days ago we had an English professor come to my HCI class and give a presentation on Rhetoric. Shortly put, it was a fantastic presentation. Sadly put: I wish someone had made a case for this kind of writing as a viable pursuit for a degree/career. Positively put: I need to find out how to incorporate the knowledge from this presentation into my focus for any future career in CS.

Longly put:

It was great to have someone in a CS class talking about all of those things I learned in every English class/Film Studies class but in a way that applied to my new degree path. The presentation dealt with using Rhetoric to anticipate what the audience of our software projects want/need. In other words, what will our end-users expect from our software applications, how with they expect them to look and how will the expect them to function.

I think that, of course, this is a concern for any software developer worth any grain of salt (even I thought of that!), but Rhetoric manages to give a name to it all. There are specific guidelines that I can follow, certain questions that I can ask myself about my intended audience that can help me anticipate their needs and wants.

It was hilarious to hear the term Gaze being discussed in a room full of mathematical and logical thinkers. Not to stereotype, but I know that a lot of them have never studied the connotations of that term, or have probably even heard of it.

This is the stuff that gets me excited about the world. The question is, how do I find a career path that lets me do this stuff professionally? I don't have the answer to that right now, but I'll be damn sure to talk to the people who do. I'm still having such a difficult time seeing what careers are out there besides coding at some company which, quite frankly, is never going to be one of my strengths. I can get better as I gain experience, but I just don't see myself being a contender for any top spots at any company simply based solely on my coding strengths. I've got to figure out a way to blend my CS knowledge with my strong analytical skills.