Hello, my name is Noah and I am majoring in Management Information Systems and Management with a minor in English. Growing up as a second-generation immigrant I understood the reasoning and methodology behind a technical career. I grew up observing the ideals of fellow immigrant families where parents heavily embraced the idea of learning a trade as a foundation for financial success. MIS served as collegiate proof as it allows you to learn more than one trade through multiple languages such as Java, Pythos, C++ and different OS’ (Linux, Windows, OSX). This was a major that felt like an all-in-one multitool, with potential for both adaptability and flexibility in the professional world.
So why MIS? I originally chose to major in Business and spent the first two years of my time at UH Manoa completing all the Gen. Ed. requirements and my English major to focus on what might interest me when I would apply to Shidler. As I mentioned, Korean immigrant parents want their children to learn a trade and though I wasn’t pushed to do so, I chose MIS because it had become a demanding skill. One thing about technology is that it is a career most similar to humans as it too, evolves. In a world where information has grown increasingly relevant, I want to learn as much as I can as I feel that it is something that will always be needed. Eventually I changed my reasoning for majoring in MIS as I realized I could use it to enter the music industry through a concept that this generation has become more and more fixated on… streaming numbers on digital platforms.
As students enter college, I noticed that passions turn into hobbies and though certain dreams may not be enough to provide an income or certain quality of life, I couldn’t let that go. Interestingly enough, I grew up as the black sheep of my family obsessed with MTV and BET Rap City using it as a tool for learning English as a child. MIS was my way of being able to enter the music industry and with it being paired to a Management major, it could lead me to positions that were not always associated with Asian-Americans. These positions could be in Artist and Repertoire where understanding the power of data, creating websites and algorithms could provide me the opportunities to be the all-in-one industry leader who may just create the next chart-breaking artist. But in case pipe dreams remain just dreams, I will always have the skills to work in the field of Information Systems/ Sciences. I hope to learn a lot from ITM 352 this semester!