"Crossing the Divide" Response

Wildcard: For this prompt, come up with a response addressing moments that resonated strongly with you in the film (refer to your notes). Consider relating what you saw to your own high school experience. Did things look familiar? Radically different? Naively outdated?


I think that our generation grew up during the time when the “gateway to new economy” occurred. I remember when I was in elementary school, the big wide Mac computers were popular and everyone wanted them. However, technology is constantly advancing in which our tastes from elementary school are different than those from high school and now. Now Mac books are the ideal laptops. To clarify my point, as the video demonstrated, in 1996, they launched a convention type event in which computer technology was introduced. Possibly for these reasons, my school held a computer class in which we learned the basics and understood how the computer can be used to complete various tasks efficiently.

In comparing my own high school experience to the video, I found some similarities and differences. I attended an all girl catholic high school. With that being said, we were all constantly encouraged to be strong competitive role models, where mass-media influences were countered, giving girls the freedom to decide for themselves who they are. Usually when people think of technology and science, minds automatically think that males play those roles. Therefore, in my school women were the dominating models. We had three computer centers that were available daily with supervisors around to answer any questions or help students that were having difficulties. However, the ratio of computers to students were not the same as Travis’ school. The New Tech high school had 250 computers for 220 students, but in talking solely about my class which consisted of a little less than 500 students, we had like 100 computers.

Another difference was that we were not nearly as encouraged as the students in the movie to use technology. Most of our classes occurred in classrooms where we took notes and did oral projects. We had some presentations that required us to use the computer programs, like PowerPoint. However, a technology based school did not guarantee success right after high school. Travis barely graduated and had to find a job. Luisa was preoccupied with her job that she graduated late. But Kep graduated and received scholarships to CalTech in continuing electrical engineering.

Overall, the distinctions outweighed the similarities. We live in a society that surrounds life around technology, which is advancing in every way. We depend on technology for everything, from work to leisure time.