Website Projections

Assignment 1

As my project revolves around the way Stanford is run, there is no doubt that the subject of the site will have changed in the next ten years. As the university strives to improve, or merely to change, it will likely tackle the very topics that my website addresses, since they are such a large part of student life. Certain situations, like freshman housing, will no longer be an issue, as the school currently is moving towards all freshman in freshman dorms, thus eliminating the decision I plan to address regarding living in all-frosh or four-class dorms. However, there is some talk that theme dorms (Casa Zapata, Okada, Muwekma, Ujamaa) will remain open to freshman, in which case another issue arises regarding whether living in such a dorm is worth it, even if you do not fit the theme of the dorm, to experience living with upperclassmen. Furthermore, once the housing has been switched to all freshman or all upperclassmen dorms, there will most likely be discussion about whether the switch was an improvement or whether offering freshman the opportunity to decide was better, and it could be switched back. That is to say, any changes that are made over the next ten years could be undone or changed further, so at no point will my website be “completely finished”.

Consequentially, it will be very important to keep the information on the site updated. Furthermore, because the focus of the site is on things that have been experienced, getting input from those who have actually been through those experiences will be invaluable. Fortunately, those two ideas work very well together, if the site allows direct comments from students themselves. Once a basic framework is set up, students can add any pieces of advice they think other people should know, or clarify anything already stated that they think can be better worded. That way, the site will keep up with changes that go on at the school, and will be flexible to those changes as the occur in the future.