Visitors to the Georgia Tech homepage (www.gatech.edu) are noticing a new addition to the recently-renovated website: namely, blogs written by students, faculty, and staff.
These blogs delve into rich detail on any topic the bloggers choose to write about; it is the public’s window into the daily lives of Tech students, and is the medium for enhanced connections between current and prospective students.
“The student blogs for the College of Computing were conceived as a way of letting both current and prospective students learn about the things that current students are involved in and doing on a daily basis,” said Jennifer Whitlow, a fourth-year Computational Media major and blogger.
“It’s used to provide a more first hand/personal experience for those reading the blog because they can learn about students’ true feelings, reactions and stresses.”
The blogs serve dual purposes in that while they do provide a glimpse into Tech life for the interested outsiders; they also allow students to discuss topics that they feel are important, adopting approaches that are unencumbered by any rules or regulations.
Third-year Computer Science major Chris Stuckey’s rationale for being a blogger fell among similar lines.
“For my particular theme, I wanted to approach a side of student opinion not commonly shared with the world at large,” Stuckey said. “In other words I wanted to educate the reader on some issue that students face, and I would try to make an objective case before swaying the reader to my opinion.”
Whitlow, a prominent presence in recruitment, felt that the blogs would contribute to that effort while acting as a compact source of information about her daily life for her family and friends.
“This was a great opportunity to keep them up to date without sending out tons of emails to different people or groups of people,” Whitlow said.
Both bloggers became involved in the initiative after an email was sent to all Computer Science and Computational Media majors, looking for student bloggers.
Interested students can create a blog by going to a web site such as blogspot.com or blogger.com, setting up an account and creating the blog by choosing desired templates and titles.
“Blogging is simple and takes little time,” Whitlow said. “It’s a great way to share with friends and family what’s going on in your daily life.”