Corinne's IST 110H Blog

In this day and age the Internet is actively affecting the lives of billions of people whether or not they are aware of it. While growing up, I was unaware of the rapid growth of the Internet. Occasionally I heard a story about it on the news but I really didn’t know what it was. I didn’t become acquainted with a computer even until I was in fifth grade and I was placed in the higher reading group, in which we were allowed to play reading games on what seemed like just another video game.
Things changed when I became a student at Pottsgrove Middle school. I quickly learned what the internet was and what computers were and that pretty much everyone had one except for me. From the very first week of middle school, computers and the Internet became something that I coveted. I was jealous of my fellow classmates who could do all the extra credit assignments that required “looking something up” for the next class and I was ashamed by my hand written papers when everyone else had begun to type them. Somewhat humorously the first major effect that computers and the Internet had on me was my handwriting. I painstakingly wrote all of my papers in the neatest handwriting I could muster so that my papers would not look too sloppy in comparison with that of my peers.
I never thought that I would be able to have a computer of my own. By the time I was in eighth grade I had seen ads for computers on the television and I was distraught by how expensive they were. They were way beyond a birthday or Christmas present and in a family with four children, where we literally lived from paycheck to paycheck, a computer simply wasn’t a priority. I frequently vented my frustration. I was heading into high school and I was taking all honors courses where I would surely need to type my papers. My grandmother was able to find a non-profit organization called Project 2000, which gives computers to underprivileged families. I finally had a computer of my own and I was ready to take high school by storm. I had taken typing courses in middle school and was fascinated by all of the things that computers made easier.
A grammatical fiend, I was in awe of features like spell check and the built in thesaurus of Microsoft Word. I really had no idea of full spectrum of things that the Internet had to offer. I learned more and more about the Internet as high school progressed.
So I had a computer and it only took another couple months before we got a phone line and hooked up the Internet. Addiction is a strong word but I was definitely mildly obsessed with instant messenger and social networks such as Xanga and Myspace. I had no idea that all of my friends had been online talking to each other like that for years and I was glad to finally be part of it all.
Although the Internet made it easier to do my homework and to take on more responsibility when participating in group projects, that is not what the internet was all about to me. The Internet was a way to expand my social outlook on the weekends. I would go on aim on a Friday night and would almost instantly have plans with friends to go to the movies or to a football or baseball game.
I have never really taken the Internet any further than the social or homework aspect. I am actually fairly inexperienced when it comes to using the Internet, especially in comparison to the rest of the people in my major. I had never considered a career in computer science before one of my friends brought me up to Penn State for his Information Sciences and Technologies “Spend a Summer Day” program. The Security and Risk Analysis segment intrigued me. I always thought that I would go to school for pre-law or something to that effect but I never wanted to go to law school. The added expense and the extra time have never been appealing to me. The plethora of opportunity that SRA offers seemed right up my alley, as I have always been one to dabble in a little bit of everything. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t also drawn in by the prospect of the “average starting salary” and “signing bonuses” that they dangled in front of us.
In the future I know that the Internet will have a great deal to do with my daily tasks at whatever occupation I choose to tackle. I want to work in a field that is semi-government related and I may want to deal with cyber-terrorism. The Internet will continue to grow and with the prospect of a global network in the not-so-far-off future, I believe that it will begin to play a larger role in all professions.
Growing up the Internet was a source of bitterness. Looking back I realize that I was exactly that, bitter that my classmates had a seemingly unfair advantage over me in the classroom. I was bitter that they all could talk to each other in “group chats” and that they no longer saw telephone calls as a necessity. I felt left out. Now I feel that I have caught up technologically. I have my own computer and am in a major where there is practically a computer in every classroom. I can’t wait for the day when one of my friends has a computer problem and I can fix it, or when someone is talking about new improvements made to wireless towers or something to that effect and I actually understand what they are talking about.
After thinking about it, it seems as if I chose this major in part just to prove to myself that I can catch up. Everyone else has had much more experience with computers and I am insanely competitive, almost to the point of fault. I want nothing more than to be just as good or better with the Internet than all of those kids who have had the Internet since it was first available. To me the Internet is the key to a successful future.