We discovered that the top 20 schools’ aggregate major distribution is dominated by STEM subjects as well as majors related to public/social work.  There is a +8% percent change in the number of STEM students compared to the average major distribution of the schools outside of the top 20, as well as a +5% change in public/social work majors.  Moreover, social sciences and trade and personal services are also attractive options for students who attend the top 20 schools.  Perhaps not too surprisingly, there are fewer students in these schools who pursue the arts or humanities subjects, but in the same vein, I would not have expected the social sciences to be such a popular field.  Also, there are fewer Business majors in these schools, which was also a bit of a surprise to me.  Overall, I think the overall conclusion that can be drawn from this data is that students in the top 20 are more drawn to hard skills and the technical fields.  Whether it is because these schools offer attractive programs in these departments and do a better job recruiting students who are interested in these subjects cannot be determined in this dataset.

For me, the underlying goal of this project was to find new and engaging ways to present data.  By using Tableau, we were able to present the data in creative and effective ways that help better communicate what the raw numbers say.

Initially, it was a frustrating process because we did not really know how to begin.  Since the initial project was already so comprehensive in its research, it was hard to find ways to meaningfully add to the data.  But once we talked it over and discussed some of the areas that the project did not address, in addition to the questions we came up with after looking through the data, it was easier to pinpoint what we needed and wanted to focus on.

Being the co-producer of this episode, I did not have as much creative freedom as last time, but this reduced role was still a new and interesting experience.  This time around, however, we decided to plan out the script more thoroughly ahead of time.  Last time, we spent quite a bit of time chopping and changing the content, which ended up taking about two and a half hours.

Despite the fact that we spent considerably less time on exploring the subject at hand, we felt that we did not really suffer content-wise in this episode.  This is mainly due to the fact that going into recording our first episode, we were much more unprepared than this time.  Having a much more structured rundown in hand also made me a lot more comfortable pushing the “record” button.  I felt much more confident in the fluidity and structure of the episode as a result.  However, the one thing that may have been affected by this different recording method was the improvisation aspect of the process.  We did not allow much room for improvisation, and I think there were certain parts in the episode that sounded a little too structured and pre-planned, which is not necessarily a bad thing in terms of the quality of our arguments and points.

As far as the content itself, this episode had a much different focus compared to the last.  The Black Mirror episode was a much more macrocosmic look at the concept of new media and its social ramifications.  This episode, however, was solely on Tinder, which made for a much more well-focused and specific subject matter.  I think that it was great that we had the opportunity to try both of these approaches.

It’s amazing how the increased interconnectedness of our world has, in some ways, also affected our willingness to communicate with strangers.  Ironically, this project highlighted this reality even though it was a technology-based assignment.

This was my first time creating a podcast.  I have recorded audio commentaries of a similar length in the past back in high school, but since I had not done it in such a long time, this almost felt like a new experience.  And I had fun doing it.

I am a huge fan of podcasts.  I listen to a couple of bi-weekly soccer podcasts as well as a daily politics one, each episode being about an hour long.  Fortunately for me, I only listen to them when I go to sleep so it does not eat into schedule at all.  In fact, it’s gotten to the point where I can’t go to sleep without having a couple of middle-aged men talking in the background.

As it turned out, recording the podcast was not as challenging as I had anticipated.  Because we had a clear rundown of the episode, we did not have to cut and trim too much of the audio, though as a result, there was not much improvisation during the recording, which made us sound a bit robotic at times.  At the same time, however, having a clear structure going into the recording ensured that we gave our content as much consideration as possible; we covered everything that we wanted to express.

As the producer of this episode, I decided not to center the episode around a specific New Media product. Instead, I wanted to draw out some of the overarching themes, trends, and concerns of New Media and its consequences at a societal level.  We did reference Black Mirror a couple times because it was actually the show that gave me the initial idea to address some of the growing concerns of New Media such as encroachment of privacy, detachment from reality, etc.  However, we also used personal anecdotes and other real-life examples to really hit home the point that these concerns are legitimate problems that plague our current society and generation.

Overall, this was an enjoyable assignment and I am looking forward to recording our second podcast.

In terms of how I wrote this narrative, I did the brainstorming/pre-writing as recommended, which I ultimately used as an outline.  Because of that, the way I planned out the narrative was not necessarily the most structured, but it did give me a lot of freedom to make amendments and additions on the go, which was creatively satisfying.  At the end of writing it, I came to the conclusion that I generally seem to have a bit more fun writing off the cuff, and then making the necessary revisions afterwards.

I also added a couple images and a hyperlink to vivify the writing.  It is not something I am used to, and neither is creative writing for that matter, which I consider this to be.  But in the future, I will be looking to incorporate more of these new media strategies as I learn them.