Technology Plus Academics: Have You Customized Your Degree?

Seems you might be interested in the program I'm in at NYU:

http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/alt/ect/

And, CREATE (the Consortium for Research and Evaluation of Advanced Technologies in Education)

While my research is focused on early American history rather than digital humanities, it was important to me that I make the latter part of my graduate program.  It was a lot harder than I had imagined, partly for bureaucratic reasons and partly because many historians aren't yet buying into the use of technology in even very basic areas (e-mail, Powerpoint, bibliographic software, etc.).  In my program, we had to have mastery of two languages or one language and a technical skill.  Traditionally technical skills have meant statistics or GIS, but I presented the argument that for the work I want to do (I hope to work on digital humanities projects as part of my career, whether in academia or public history), digital humanities was important to me.

I already had significant work experience planning and supervising digital humanities projects, so my goal in grad school was to keep myself involved in that work since the technology changes so quickly.  My university doesn't have any courses in the field, so I pretty much looked around on my own and found an initiative through the library that worked on creating digital text projects.  I worked for one school year as a consultant on some small projects for them, giving my advisors copies of my work as proof I'd fulfilled my "technical skills" requirement.

It was a real challenge getting my department to agree to this (although I did have my advisors' support).  The response was largely "how is making a website a skill and why would you need to know anything about it as a scholar?"  Many had no awareness that this is a skill that is a real benefit on the job market right now, while others saw it only as a tool for publishing rather than for collaborative research.

So, I think there are a couple of lessons for the HASTAC community here.  First, many universities have digital initiatives housed somewhere--the library, the university museum, etc.--that would appreciate the free labor and can in turn offer grad students a chance to work on projects in progress.  Second, part of what those of us here need to do at our universities and at academic conferences is to serve as evangelizers for digital humanities, not merely as a topic of research but as a field that can be integrated into own work as scholars in traditional disciplines.

Hmmm... I am customizing my degrees as I go along and it seems to be a happy combination of luck and determination as the rather slow machinations of university institutions rumble forward to integrate digital thinking and digital work.  Until we have express permission, the onus, I've found,  is on us to forge the paths ahead and improvise as much as necessary.  We're creating and developing the structures to come.

I took a BA in Mathematics (UCSC) with an expressed emphasis in feminist histories of science and segued it into a media studies heavy MA in Communication structured around digitally mediated distance learning (EGS).  From there I now find myself in an M.F.A. program in Digital Art and New Media.  I'm on my way and each new step has provided neatly the momentum into the next.  There is a movement.  Not yet evenly or widely distributed it seems, but it's here.

I have no Ph.D commitments (yet), but my MFA and MA together will have been 5 years of time, money,  and focus well spent.  The MA work laid down a good grounding in theory and contemporary issues/implication wrt new media and communication while the MFA work encourages a tremendous range for practice and exploration of building towards our digitally informed ambitions.

My strategy from here on is to develop my artwork in the direction I would like to see my potential PhD research go.  In my case, this appears to involve comparative research around mathmematics curricula and the incorporation of digital media into mathemetics education.  My hope is that my developing "digital" expertise will make me a stand-out applicant in more traditional fields (Education/Sociology/?...) where this skill set can be welcomed as a benefit and a service.

Thanks for the discussion topic.  I am in a critical place career wise and curious to hear how others are faring.

I've been lucky enough to have been in fairly supportive environments throughout my academic career. As an undergrad at Rice, I was exposed to electronic literature during my second year by a visiting professor, and spent the rest of my time there convincing other professors to allow me to do digital media projects. I was mostly successful in ordinary classrooms, but the Rice Undergrad Scholars Program gave me a great opportunity to develop a large research project at the undergrad level. RUSP tends to attract science and engineering students, so I was a bit of a novelty for them as a humanities kid doing funded "research," but I found them to be an enthusiastic audience for me to practice how to talk to non-experts about a relatively obscure field.

Fast forward to grad school at UCSB. Armed with characters like Alan Liu and Rita Raley, our English Department is quite progressive in terms of seeking out ways to investigate the intersections between information and technology, both in terms of using technology in the classroom and in fostering the study of literature and technology. Our Literature.Culture.Media Center serves as the home base within the department for students and faculty working in the field, providing a physical space for us to convene as well as serving as a host to various speakers and conference activities. For undergraduate English majors, the LCM sponsors a specialization program for Literature and the Culture of Information.

On the campus level, there are also plenty of resources for those in all departments. The Center for Information Technology and Society is a multi-disciplinary research center that hosts a PhD Emphasis program - seems to fit right into the "customization" you're looking for, Amanda. I've also found that our Instructional Development program is very enthusiastic about and supportive of learning how to implement new technologies in the classroom.