Sienna
siennabates.com ∙ github ∙ mastodon ∙ twittersecurity and privacy enthusiast, researcher, AMC A-lister
PhD Application Rejection
Unfortunately this past week has been rather rough. On Monday I heard back from UC Berkeley about my application to the School of Information’s PhD program. They are unable to offer me a slot for the upcoming school year beginning in Fall 2025. I am pretty disheartened by the news as I really thought I had a good chance and was doing all the right things to make myself an ideal candidate. I know it is a competitive program and they only take a few people every year, sometimes under 5 but never more than 10 and they get hundreds of applicants every year for that program. ...Gen AI Follow Up
More and more at my job I keep hearing about things like “if you aren’t using AI everyday or finding ways to incorporate it into your job, you’ll fall behind”. This makes me think about all the discourse about whether AI will be taking everyone’s jobs. I still firmly believe a human element is necessary for all jobs regardless of how much one believes we need to incorporate AI. I think the approach to its incorporation in the workplace day to day is fundamentally flawed. It is a powerful technology and it is really cool to see how it has evolved in such a short period. However, that does not make it some magical cure or solution to all problems, there are still problems with each platform or service. I believe many people are so in awe of its capabilities that it is often mistaken for a replacement for their actual thoughts and effort into solving a problem. ...An Even Higher Education
Recently I was thinking about whether or not I wanted to pursue higher education, well, an even HIGHER education that is. I never really thought I would be interested in pursuing a doctorate but thinking about it more and more it doesn’t seem like a terrible idea. I really have a few things I am looking at but the deadline to apply to UC Berkeley is December this year so I have a few months to think about it and get it together. Berkeley is likely the only place I would want to apply due to its proximity for where I live. The worst that can happen is my application is rejected. They only accept about 3-7 students out of hundreds of applicants. I am a bit worried about whether or not I am “good enough” to get in to such a prestigious school. I know everyone says its hard to be successful in tech or security without a CS degree and while I don’t have one yet, I’m also not interested in pursuing one either. There is an Information Systems PhD in the iSchool or information school that seems like it is more appealing to me and would fit the types of things I want to study and learn about. ...Privacy Perspective
I like that this paper has some ideas that privacy is difficult to define but maybe, similarly to the concept of “cybersecurity” as a whole, is there much work on the thought that privacy is more of an umbrella term and why is is difficult to descibe or define is because there are many types and the day to day person is not as familiar with the possibility there can not only be more than one type but more than one definition. ...Gen AI Thoughts
We saw a massive dip in the educational quality students were getting during and post Covid. The amount of teachers retiring and discussing how their students lack basic skills for literacy and critical thinking is staggering. I see so many posts on various social medias taking specific stances or commenting about a recent issue without actually doing any reading and follow up. Like it’s absolutely fine to have a wrong stance on something (I do believe some things are fundamentally correct or not correct than up for debate on). However posing their stance as fact or because of what a specific article says and people always want a shortened version because reading is a lot of engagement and our society is moving its focus to short form content. This can be damaging because people just want to read a headline or quote and don’t actually understand it can be taken out of context and used to spread misinformation - and people just don’t care. ...