Associate Professor, Department of Radio & Television, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
“ CIS has equipped me with fundamental capabilities to cope with future challenge in teaching and research.”
In the digital age, the converging phenomena among media, computer technology, and telecommunication infrastructure shape societies significantly that requires an interdisciplinary study to better tackle the complicated new territory. As a lecturer in Taiwan’s university who attempted to stretch her knowledge domains, I decided to attend the Interdisciplinary Communication Information Sciences doctoral program (CIS) at University of Hawai’i at Manoa in 2004. Honestly, it was one of the best choices that I have made in my life. With three-year rigorous training (courses, exams, proposal, dissertation), I expanded my knowledge span and scope from Communication to MIS and HCI, thanks to these excellent professors and inspiring cohorts. CIS study not only exposed me to varieties of theories and methods cross-disciplines, but also opened my mind to appreciate diversities and further curbed the tendency to embrace “paradigms” blindly. It set up a solid foundation for me to conduct research regarding evolving new communication information technologies (DTV, TV news digitalization, Weblog, mobile TV, etc.), and to collaborate with scholars from different backgrounds, as my doctoral training benefits me to quickly enter novel and unfamiliar arenas, grasp their core concepts, and communicate with people in their disciple languages. Before my dissertation defense in 2007, I obtained the assistant professor position in the Communication and Information School at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. As an academic newbie, I am not afraid of any future challenge in teaching and research, because CIS has equipped me with fundamental capabilities to cope with them. CIS and Hawai’i will be always in my heart and thoughts!