My Skills Are Real!

MCOM 320 -- Week 2

Last night I listened in as my roommate, Jessie, participated in a Skype call with her new internship employer. The new employer guided her through what her purpose was, what she would do, and how she would do it. The company is creating a dictionary for closed captioning in Spanish. Many closed captioning services mark names or slang words as misspelled-even when they’re not-which is where this company comes in. Jessie’s job is simple: Go through all the words the service marked as misspelled, identify which were marked incorrectly, and then add them to the dictionary they’d created.

Everything sounded like it would run smoothly, until I heard how this particular company processes and stores the data they receive. My only experience with data storage comes from taking IS 110 last semester and IS 201 this semester. I am not an expert in data storage by any standards. However, I’d learned enough to know that trying to store data with Excel is a terrible, awful, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot-repeatedly idea. Unfortunately, that is what this company was trying to do.

Then came an empowering moment of realization; I could help these people. By the end of IS 201 this semester, I could design a more efficient and secure database for them. That’s what I was going to school for-to learn how to improve the world, to go forth and serve-and I had a golden opportunity. This was possibly the first instance I recognized where my education had a practical use. I felt that I could contribute in a significant way to improve a significant portion of this company. As soon as Jessie hung up, I mentioned what I was thinking, and asked her to see what her employers thought about the idea at the next opportunity. I’ll follow up with her a month before the semester ends, hopefully when I have more knowledge of data storage structures. Hopefully I’ll be in contact with her employers during finals week.

If the employers are willing, I will work with them to create a database that outperforms their current Excel spreadsheets. I will use the information I gain from the classes I’m taking and advice from my Information Systems professors to create a database tailored to this company’s needs.