Hello everyone,

I’m Cathie LeBlanc, a professor at Plymouth State University.  This is my first blog entry for the AskJoeCollege website.  My goal is to try to give you advice about college from the point of view of a faculty member.  I plan to write on topics such as work load differences between high school and college, choosing a major, how to get the most out of your relationship with your advisor and professors, classroom behaviors that are likely to lead to success and so on.  I’d like to hear from you about the kinds of topics you would like to read about from a faculty perspective.  So send in your suggestions!  In the meantime, let me tell a little about my own path to my current position.

I grew up in Goffstown, New Hampshire and was the first in my family to go to college.  As an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, I majored in computer science and upon graduation in 1985, I took a job as a software developer at a small company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  Although I loved computer programming, I realized that what I really enjoyed about my job was training our users to use the software that we developed.  This led me to think about going to graduate school so that I could teach at the college level.  I spent two years as a grant writer and fund-raiser for a small non-profit in Northampton, Massachusetts before I went to Florida State University where I received my master’s degree and PhD in computer science in 1995 and 1997 respectively.  I started teaching at Plymouth State University in 1998, first in the Computer Science Department and now in the Communication and Media Studies Department.  I currently focus my teaching and research efforts in the area of digital media and regularly write a blog about issues concerning technology, media and society.  My specific area of focus is game studies, which relates to my previous work in artificial intelligence.  At PSU, I regularly teach our First Year Seminar, which introduces first year students to academic life in general and critical thinking in particular.  I think that I have lots of advice for students making the transition to college as well as students who are in college trying to figure out what to do with their lives.  But I am completely open to suggestions about future topics for this blog.  So please send me your questions and comments.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you!
Cathie