Harmit Chima joined the DH@SDSU Initiative as the DH Programs Assistant in June, 2020. She shared her thoughts about why she wanted to join the DH@SDSU community.
I define “digital humanities” as the integrating application between digital technology and the humanities discipline. It’s where art, music, fashion, literature, food, etc come to life through a virtual experience. The way art heals, digital humanities has the capacity to heal universally as a widespread source.
My first experience with this was in Spring 2020 in Dr. Jessica Pressman’s ENG 560: “Digital Literature” class, where we analyzed how contemporary literature and reading practices technologically morphed into what it is today and why the study of these transformations matter. In this class, I experienced literature like how the kids on the magic school bus experienced education, first-hand. Creating my final project exposed me to the healing powers of digital humanities during a pandemic; helping me cope with the cancellation of my undergraduate graduation and the job market becoming bleak.
Prior to Digital Literature, I was a statistics major at San Diego State University, exposing myself to Geographic Information System courses. There I found my passions in data science and digital humanities. I will be starting my MS in Big Data Analytics this Fall 2020 and plan to accentuate GIS through the digital humanities realm. What attracted me to this program was how vast the transdisciplinares were, I could apply this to technology, finance, english and so much more.
Email: hchima@sdsu.edu