I, R. Stuart Geiger, am currently a graduate student at Georgetown University, studying Culture, Communication, and Technology. I have been interested in technology ever since my parents sent my prepubescent self to a “computer camp” for a few weeks in the summer, where I learned computer programming, as well as Doom and various MUDs. It is no surprise that I come from “computer geek” culture, and was one of those kids who completely messed up the family computer in middle school by trying to install Linux on it.
I entered college at the University of Texas at Austin as a Computer Science major, but soon switched my focus to politics and then philosophy, which was largely a consequence of my involvement with the policy debate team. However, I never lost my love for technology, and soon found myself in the Science, Technology, and Society program. In 2007, I received a Bachelors of Arts degree in Humanities, emphasizing STS, political philosophy, and rhetoric. My Senior thesis was titled “Democracy in Wikipedia,” and attempted to explain the structure and development of policies and laws in the free Encyclopedia project. Despite the fact that I’ve been a registered contributor to Wikipedia since 2004 and someone who has visited the site on a consistent basis since then, I got some things wrong. I am currently revising that work, which I hope to refactor into my thesis, whatever that will be.
In Fall of 2007, I started my graduate studies at Georgetown University, in the Communication, Culture, and Technology program. It is a program that extols the virtues of “interdisciplinarity,” a rather nebulous concept these days. I find it to be a good fit for me, as what I do reaches across the areas of communication, culture, and technology. However, I keep coming back to philosophy more and more. Ultimately, my plans are by no means certain, which I feel is a good place to end this section.
