I think that the main thing that all of us agree on is the fact that future universities will not be as centralized as they are now. They will be more globalized by means of being more accessible from other parts of the world. I think that it is obvious that more technology will be invented. However the most important factor is how this technology will be used to improve the learning experience for the students. As an example I have a grad level course this term which is broadcasted from Texas and I think that they are doing a good job in keeping the class interactive. There are about 10 other universities in this class and University of Texas has their in class exercises designed in a way to have each university contribute to a part of the exercise. However students are not encouraged to participate since you do not feel included or seen when you are being broadcasted. For this reason at some point almost all the students at least at Tech lose focus. I think that the only time that we feel the need to contribute is when they call our University and we feel the need to contribute something. I think it is best to have more in class exercises and make it even more interactive so that we do not lose focus. This class is also very long (4 hours!) so both the duration of this class and not having too many in class exercises has led to us losing focus half way through this class. At some point we just feel disconnected since generally is it not very easy to stay focused in classes which are broadcasted. Such examples might also exist in the future with respect to the future technology. I think that the pathway to a bright future can be constructed by making sure that technology is enhancing the learning process and is not just being used. I also think that there will be more interdisciplinary work and collaboration among various majors. An example of this is the building construction program here at Tech which I think is a brilliant idea since I always had in mind that it would be great to have Civil Engineers and Architects collaborate more. Such programs will exist even more in the future and even new majors may be developed. As we stand now, I think that we are working towards interdisciplinary for sure. The NSF project that I am working on is absolutely fascinating since it includes students and faculty members from Business Administration, Architecture, Construction Management, Structural Engineering, and Geo-technical engineering. This is great example of how we are working towards interdisciplinarity.
