CHI 436 - Assignment 0

Hi Everyone,

My name is Mike Watts and I am a fifth year senior computer engineering student (electrical track). The best way to contact me is by email at mike.watts27@gmail.com. I am taking this course to learn more about how humans interact with technology. As far as experience and what I bring to this class, well... I am a human, so that is a good start. Like most of the students in this class, I have interacted with computers all of my life and I often think of why we program computers to act a certain way. After college I plan on working in industry, probably in IT or software development. I also would like to live somewhere that I can enjoy the outdoors and row, which is one of my passions. Ten years from now, I hope that I am building a career in whichever discipline I decide to pursue, staying in shape by rowing competitively, and growing a family of my own. I believe that the next big technological advancement in computer science will be human avatars that will interact with the world, while their owners sit at home or are kept alive by medical machines. Sounds crazy, right? Not according to Russia's 2045 initiative, which hopes to provide robotic avatars by 2020 and holographic avatars by 2045. If I could travel back in time, I would go back and meet Neil Armstrong. What, too soon? Out of all of my shoes, my favorites would be regular ol' running shoes, which is what you will see me in around campus most of the time. If I learned another language, it would probably be German, because most of my family is from Heidelberg, Germany. As for an interesting fact about myself... I have been dating the same girl since freshman year of high school. It has been over nine years and we have never broken up.

I hope that this introductory blog gives you an insight into who I am.