{"id":23210,"date":"2015-01-01T13:17:24","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T18:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=23210"},"modified":"2015-02-13T11:33:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T16:33:38","slug":"in-defense-of-learning-weird-stuff-in-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/in-defense-of-learning-weird-stuff-in-college\/","title":{"rendered":"In defense of learning weird stuff in college"},"content":{"rendered":"

Running a power plant<\/span>\u00a0effectively requires keeping tabs on an awful lot of data relating to fuel consumption, power output, weather conditions, grid demand, etc. & etc. And in turn, keeping tabs on all this data effectively requires clever software that allows users to visualize and understand what might otherwise be a confounding torrent of raw information.<\/p>\n

John Swartzentuber \u201985<\/b>\u00a0has been working on that very sort of software with a company called OSIsoft for the past eight years. Swartzentruber is a development lead, working out of the company\u2019s Philadelphia office. He leads a team of developers working on next iterations of the data analysis software, while coordinating with other team leaders, helping to plan release cycles, recruiting new staff and consulting with clients \u2013 power plants aren\u2019t the only ones; many different industries have lots of data to manage \u2013 to improve the software\u2019s \u201cuser experience design.\u201d<\/p>\n

An ideal user experience would render its designers invisible. When programs are working smoothly, doing what they\u2019re supposed to, people don\u2019t spend time thinking about why that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strive to be unappreciated, almost,\u201d Swartzentruber says. \u201cIf people don\u2019t notice the software, you\u2019re doing your job right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Accomplishing that often requires out-of-the-box thinking; new challenges keep things interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just rote,\u201d he says. \u201cYou really have a lot of creative flexibility to figure out the best way to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty years ago, when Swartzentruber was working on his computer science minor at EMU (a major wasn\u2019t available yet), he took a class called \u201cProgramming Languages,\u201d during which longtime computer science professor\u00a0Joe Mast<\/b>\u00a0assigned something involving a fairly esoteric language known as LISP. It was a toughie \u2013 so difficult, in fact, that Mast eventually cancelled the assignment. Inspired by the challenge, though Swartzentruber buckled down and kept at it and finally came up with a solution.<\/p>\n

LISP isn\u2019t something he actually uses anymore, but the appreciation it taught him for approaching problems from new angles has. Thinking of becoming a programmer? Go down the rabbit hole with something weird or obscure. Diversify your toolbox.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to think in a different kind of way, to try something completely different,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Between Swartzentruber\u2019s junior and senior years, EMU\u2019s nascent computer science program suffered something of a setback: its PDP-11 \u2013 the machine that every computer student shared time on \u2013 died. (The PDP-11 was a \u201cminicomputer,\u201d an amusingly dated description in this smartphone era.)<\/p>\n

That meant Swartzentruber spent his senior year working on Apple IIe computers, which turned out to be at the vanguard of the coming PC revolution, and which ultimately meant that the demise of the PDP-11 was actually a stroke of good fortune for students affected by the loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a lot of ways, I felt very well prepared [for work after college],\u201d he says. \u201cWe sort of got into the PC world a little quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running a power plant\u00a0effectively requires keeping tabs on an awful lot of data relating to fuel consumption, power output, weather conditions, grid demand, etc. & etc. And in turn, keeping ... read more about In defense of learning weird stuff in college<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":23211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4515,266,13808,5598,5730],"tags":[15447,6834,16356,16355,16335,16338,15561],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-23210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-computer-science","category-mathematical-sciences","category-undergraduate-programs","tag-computer-science","tag-eastern-mennonite-university","tag-emu","tag-i-t","tag-information-systems","tag-information-technology","tag-joe-mast"],"yoast_head":"\nIn defense of learning weird stuff in college - 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