My name is Julia Hotaling, and I'm a second year New Media Interactive Design student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. My interests are in wearable tech, app development, genetic algorithms, web development, user interaction, and interactivity in general. I've been into art since I could hold a pencil, and found a new interest in programming when I chose to attend RIT. I'm looking for challenging positions where I will be pushed to learn and improve, as well as somewhere where I can apply and develop my design and programming skills.
In my free time, I enjoy drawing, sports, video games, and going to museums. My favorite sport is volleyball; I have played for over six years, indoor and outdoor, and am a middle blocker.
This semester I'm participating in an independent study with four other students to create an app using Unity and Mapbox that will aid gender non-conforming students in finding gender neutral bathrooms on campus. What I plan to get out of this study is new knowledge in geolocation technologies, augmented reality, and building mobile apps using Unity.
Also, I plan to attend two hackathons this semester, BrickHack 5 and WiCHacks. I plan for both projects to expand on my web development knowledge and take me further into creating mobile applications. I find the 24 hour period that hackathons provide to focus on one single project both a fun way to show off my skills but also an exciting personal challenge as well.
The big takeaways from the final semester of my second year are learning Unity, building on my knowledge of JavaScript and C#, playing with geolocation, augmented reality, and React.js, and overall taking on more self-driven team projects.