On Saturday, May 15, friends and family gathered at the Campanile Esplanade to celebrate this year's graduates of the UC Berkeley School of Information. The class of 2010 included 39 master's degrees and three doctoral degrees.
Dean AnnaLee Saxenian welcomed the audience and introduced the commencement speaker Tim Brown, the CEO and president of innovation and design firm IDEO.
Brown described the challenges and rewards of working in disciplines he wasn't trained for: "I work on problems I never dreamed of, like clean water distribution in India, healthcare reform in the US, and growth strategies for major companies. I find all of this extremely challenging and very fulfilling." Brown described how what he called "design thinking" can prepare you for unexpected challenges, and challenged the graduates to use their design thinking skills not just in their jobs, but in their lives. His tips included "Don’t ask 'what?' Ask 'why?'" "Open your eyes," "Build on the ideas of others," "Demand options," and "Balance your portfolio."
Graduating master's students Erin Knight and Ryan Greenberg offered their perspective of their time at the I School, commiserating with other students and faculty about the difficulty of describing what exactly a "school of information" is, and attempting to summarize their two years in sixty seconds.
In homage to Ryan's fascination with "single-serving sites" (sites with a very long URL and very little content), the two introduced the website whatareerinandryantalkingaboutnow.com, which offered real-time updates of the status of their speech.
Dilan Mahendran spoke on behalf of the graduating doctoral students. He drew laughs for his description of Ph.D. students. "We keep to ourselves.... No one quite knows what we're up to. We seem to come and go as we please; we keep odd hours; we behave kind of like addicts — overcaffeinated and scurrying here and there.... When we talk, unintelligible jargon spews from our mouths."
The commencement ceremony also presented an opportunity to honor both faculty and student achievements. On behalf of the Information Management Student Association, first-year student Thomas Schluchter presented awards to two faculty members: assistant professor Deirdre Mulligan received the I School Distinguished Teaching Award, and assistant professor Kimiko Ryokai received the Distinguished Mentor Award.
Dean Saxenian presented the 2010 Dr. James R. Chen Awards for outstanding master's final projects to the projects Transporter: A Real-time Public Transit App Designed for the Bay Area, Migratory Words: Computational Tools for Investigative Political Research, and City of San Francisco Open Email. Following the ceremony, graduates, friends, and family enjoyed a festive reception on the South Hall lawn.
More Information:
- 2010 Commencement Award Winners
- 2010 Master's Final Projects
- Tim Brown's Commencement Address: "Designing a Life"
