Amy Haas

MIMS 2011
U.S. Coast Guard

My background

I’m a lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard with 13 years of technical experience in the IT field, including voice systems, data networking, computer programming, microwave technology, and project design.

Why information — and why the I School

My undergraduate degree is a B.S. in Information Technology and I’ve spent my career working in on diverse IT projects.  I was fortunate to be selected for a graduate program through the military, and was given some latitude regarding the university I chose, provided my degree was related to information technology management. I researched schools around the country and was immediately drawn to the dynamic learning approach offered by the I School. I felt confident that the MIMS curriculum would enable me to expand upon my role as a leader and an expert in the planning and implementation of innovative solutions for the Coast Guard’s evolving telecommunications requirements.

What stands out about my experience here

One of the best things about studying at the I School is being surrounded by such brilliant people.  Without fail, every class I attended left me absolutely impressed by the quality of the lecture material and the insightful comments made by my fellow students.  It made such a difference in the value of my education to not only be able to view the concepts theoretically or abstractly but also practically — making the courses highly relevant to real world applications.

An “aha!” moment

Working on my master’s final project, I was pleasantly surprised to discover just how much I was able to draw from concepts and incorporate key ideas from nearly all of the courses I’ve taken at Cal. As I constructed the outline of my project, it suddenly became clear why the core courses were important as the foundation of the rest of my curriculum.

My focus

My master’s final project was about using social media in large organizations, particularly for improving newcomer socialization and hierarchical information flow.

Information challenge that intrigues me

It’s been said that we are leaving the “Information Age” and are entering the “Attention Age,” in which there is so much information available and people are so overwhelmed by it that human attention will become a scarce commodity.  If this is true, then the demand for HCI experts and other information management professionals will steadily increase based on their unique skills and abilities to capture users’ attention and extract meaning from a sea of information.

Trends I’m watching

I think information science will continue to trend toward focusing on the sociological aspects of information. Social media will probably become more embedded in organizational environments and professional settings in addition to being a mainstay for personal communication.