Intellectual Autobiography

“Welcome to Forbidden City, how can I help you?” By the time I reached high school, it became an instinct reaction to greet any customers who walked into my fathers restaurant, or respond in a similar manner when answering the phone. I grew up helping out at my parent’s restaurant whenever help was needed. I held a variety of positions while working at the restaurant, and became very competent at each of them. These positions varied from behind the scene tasks such as dish washing, helping out the chefs, taking carryout/delivery order and preparing them, to in the scene tasks such as greet and seating customers, handling the cash register, and even managing if necessary. I became a very important asset to my parents as I was a very flexible worker. I felt like I knew how to do my task, and did what I believe was best for my parent’s business.

These skills and task did not come to me easily though. While I did become a very flexible person in the end, it was hard at first to adapt to the change. Because of the restaurant, my life became very ambiguous. I never knew or could give a clear answer to the schedule of my day. My father would call home and tell my mom that he needed me to go help at the restaurant with very little notice. This made me have to cancel many social plans I may have had already scheduled, but my priority was to my parents. Because of these short notice calls, I learned to become flexible in my own life as well. I also learned to tolerate ambiguity as I faced it almost every week. However, my commitment to my parents made very reliable. Unless I had a test the next day which I needed to study for, or an emergency, I never skipped going to work.

However, as I was preparing for college, I was interested in business, but I wanted to learn more about technology. The programming class I took in high school, along with influences from my aunts and uncles who work in the computer industry and my love for gaming on a computer or any console system made me want to take a peek into Computer Science. It was not until I attended the National Youth Leadership Forum on Technology, and got to visit some computer companies did I decided I was going to take a chance and take the adventure of majoring in Computer Science (CS) at Virginia Tech (VT).

Before reaching VT, my experience as the vice editor for my high school yearbook had me thinking a bit. Most of the student in the yearbook staff were not to technologically literate. Other than instant messaging, e-mails and surfing the web, most did not know how to use it efficiently. I started questioning how things were done as well. Other than designing the pages for the yearbook, very little was done on the computer, and we were still using regular film cameras for all of our pictures. I did not understand why we did not do more on our computers, and why was it that we had not started using digital cameras to take most of our pictures. This gap in technology for the school yearbook irritated me, and when the publishers came to speak with us, I asked the publishers questions, and learned how we could incorporate things such as digital pictures into our book. Because of my understanding of technology, I was able to change how things were done during my senior year. I took initiative, dedicated many extra hours into creating the book, and helping others in the class learn how to use the computers, and helping them in general if they needed any. As my advisor said, the book was a team effort, but it was also a business. This experience made me decide that I wanted to also minor in business when I got to Virginia Tech.

My first two semester at VT as a CS major was just horrible. I disliked how most of the classes were organized. Back in high school, the classes I took were more team oriented, and fun, but in college there was so much individual work and less socializing. I was in the college of engineering. While most of my friends were out having fun, I was in my dorm room, doing engineering homework, and writing programs everyday. Another aspect of the major was the people’s attitudes in the classes. Most of the professors I had were very high and mighty and believed that they were always right. The students were also the same way, or they would try to cut every corner they could to just finish the work even if it was not done in an efficient way. Coming from the work environment, I grew up in where I communicated with others and worked hard to make sure everything was done right and for the best of the company, these attitudes really annoyed me.

During my junior, I decided that there was no way I wanted to major in the field of CS. I decided that I was going to switch to Business and minor in CS. However, I did not know in what aspect of business I wanted to get into. Business Information Technology, Marketing and even Management all caught my eyes, but I just could not decide. There was also one major obstacle in my way though and that was the state of my current GPA. It was far below what the College of Business wanted to get accepted into their programs. Unsure what I was going to do, I started to take a look into Interdisciplinary Studies. I thought to myself, “Hey, at least I can graduate with a diploma from VT by going to IDST if I do not get accepted into Pamplin”, and did not take the major seriously. It was just a back up plan if I failed to get into Pamplin. I decided to take a risk though and started taking my first IDST class in the Spring 08 semester of classes.

It was from Professor Watson’s introduction to IDST class which really got me thinking about IDST more seriously. I thought to myself, “These are two fields I have always liked”, and I did enjoy trying to mix the both of them together. The problem of businesses not using technology to their full advantage still bugged me. Just as it did in my yearbook class, I started doing the same thing to my parent’s restaurant and talked them into getting a central ordering computer to organize and handle all of the orders for the new carryout/deliver place.

My first summer session 08 management theory teacher also left a huge impact on me. She showed how management is affected by not only business, but many other aspects such as the psychology or the work environment, the technology available, the tasks and background of the company. This made me think that problem in any business need to look at from an interdisciplinary way in order to have a successful business. She also challenged me to take more of my ideas to my parents on how to improve the restaurant.

As I continue my path as an interdisciplinarian, I am still learning how to become apply what I have learned better in order to not only help my parents restaurant, but the company which I will work for in my future. If I do get accepted into Pamplin, I am not going to drop my IDST major, but instead double major in Business and IDST and add a Science Technology Studies minor as I view it as a complimentary discipline for what I want to continue to solve which is the gap between technology and business.