So I’m going to do a Master study in Human Computer Interaction. HCI is a study targeted to make students into professionals in the field of, eh, Human Computer Interaction. You might say that the students will become “Interface Designers”, but I think this description will be a bit too narrow. Anyway, I’ll learn how to make (computer-) systems a lot more user friendly.

How? Well, by doing a lot of work. I’ll take 60 units in both the Fall and Spring semester, and another 48 in the Summer semester. That’s right. No summer holidays for me this year. :(

Anyway, it’ll probably be interesting and fun :). There are courses in broadly three categories: design, programming and psychology. And of course several “special purpose” HCI courses, and a really big capstone project in which it all comes together.

I’ll put a list of all my courses and projects on this blog, and post info about them regularly.

Innovation Sciences is a study that combines technology and social sciences. The philosophy behind this is that it takes more than technological knowledge to make a new technology into a successful innovation. You need to deal with economic, legal and social effects, with ethical questions, with the psychology and preferences of the users, etcetera.

With this you can explain several phenomena of technological successes and failures of the past. For example, the industrial revolution in The Netherlands was held back by the strong position of guilds. Mechanical production of – for example – bread was far cheaper than the traditional means of production, but the bakers’ guild put all bread factories out of business by artificially lowering their prices (using built up guild savings) below production costs. Thus, the social organization overpowered technological superiority.

Of course you can also explain current phenomena. Big players in the UMTS telephony market are having serious problems at the moment, because several small companies play strategic games with their (essential) patents, asking huge sums and driving prices of UMTS-enabled cellphones to ridiculous heights.

Excursion to Covra, the Dutch nuclear waste depository.

Even prediction of future developments is part of the program: RFID chips, used as a “smart barcode”, are a quite invasive technology. In fact, if every product contains an RFID chip, companies can gather data about every individual product we use: when we buy it, when we use it and how much of it, and when we dispose of it. However, I think that a future with RFID chips in every product is inevitable. The (few, small) advantages of RFID technology are clearly visible and understandable for customers, but the dangers of loss of privacy are less clear, further off, and more complicated.

In my examples I purposefully left out the topic that I like most: usability. This is a very important part of the study program, and the usability/consumer behavior part has its own separate master study: Human-Technology Interaction. I will be doing this MSc when I get back from the USA (see my adventure).

After the completion of my BSc and a board year at Intermate, I’m a “regular” at our study. Furthermore, I took a lot of assistantships at our faculty. They include teaching (two courses in measurement and data analysis), programming (sociological computer models), course redesign (cognition), devising tests (physics), research assistance, and tutoring. Being active is highly encouraged in our faculty, and almost all students are involved with the study program in various ways besides just taking courses. This is probably because our group is quite small, and everyone knows each other. Even the staff knows most of the students.

Here are some links if you want to know more about Innovation Sciences, Human Technology Interaction, or Technology & Policy (the other, economics/law/sociology-based MSc).

With this weblog I will keep my friends, family, teachers and fellow students back in The Netherlands up to date about my life in de USA. Furthermore, I hope some of my fellow students in the US will visit this site once in a while, so my two “social domains” can get to know each other :D.

I’ll post messages about courses, parties, trips and other events, as well as some random stuff that is not event-related, but just crosses my mind. I promised to write for the Intermate periodical once in a while, and I’ll put those texts on my weblog too. I’ll try to update this blog several times a week, although this can decrease if I’m having a real good time :P.

I want this blog to be a meeting point for my friends, a guide for other students that want to go abroad, a diary worthy to return to in a later stage of my life, and something fun to read for everyone interested.

Keeping this blog alive will require your help, so please comment, discuss and chat as much as you want. You can comment on every entry. If you have a “random” comment, please use the Shoutbox in the sidebar. Some of my entries will be in Dutch, but I’ll try to keep that to a minimum. For all other entries: please try to use English in your comments as much as possible.

I hope you have fun reading this weblog. Giving feedback is encouraged, and if you want to contribute in any way other than via the comments and the shoutbox, please mail me at

ln.trabasu@trab