The week before last I went to the Student Health Centre. When I told the doctor that I am from IST, she said with a surprising tone "Wow, you are a computer girl"! Well, as I had done many times before, I explained to her tha I am not from computer sciences background. It is understandable that to many people in this university, the concept of IST is still vague. But it is a pity because they don't know that IST is one of the leading pioneers in interdisciplinary exploration among I-Schools in the nation.
This is true because I have compared all the I-schools on the website. (http://www.ischools.org/oc/schools.html). I found many I-Schools are either concentrate on computer science or library science. And IST is one of the few schools that cover a large range of interdisciplinary researches. I have another proof from our ongoing project of IST faculty collaboration for IST511. The background of IST faculty is really broad and the research of faculty expands many areas to other disciplinaries.
I think this interdisciplinary flavor of IST will be stronger because our school is going to open a B.A program. As a student who got both B.A and M.A in my previous education, I'm so curious and excited to know this news. How the new program is going to be like? Can we bring imaginary and aesthetic sense to information science? Can we investigate deeper in human nature to optimize technology? What are the curriculums? Will it lead to a M.A program in future? I even can not wait to see. I even begin to think of what I can do in this new domain.
The flexivity of IST
IST has a very flexible structure for both faculty and students. Unlike many other schools which use departments to separate sections, IST sets up many labs and research centers for particular research interests. As for me, I may find my place in both Center for Information Society and Enterprise Informatics and Integration Center. And for some other students whose research interests still wavers from Social Informatics and HCI, both Center for Information Society and Penn State Center for Human-Computer Interaction will work. I think there are many new coming PhDs who can not decide what special area he/she will do and the lab/center pattern can give them more flexibility than department pattern do. As for the faculty, one faculty may work in several labs or centers according to different projects, so the lab/center pattern can guarantee the efficient flow of research resource and break up boundaries existing among normal departments. I think this flexibility is especially important for an interdisciplinary research school.
Suggestion for IST
I think IST could make some adjustment in current course design. My reason is as follows: Students in IST are from various backgrounds. As a result, the level of understanding to a certain area is different with each student. For example, the technical content in some core courses are too deep for social science students and these too technique knowledge will not have much to do with their social research. Thus I think it may be possible for IST to develop several levels of core courses. Take the social science students for example again. They will take a less difficult tech core course while taking a more demanding social science core course. Vise versa with the technique background students. I think this adjustment will reduce course pressure and inspire more enthusiasm and productivity on students.
i share your sentiments regarding the course structure and the core courses.
-Arvind