Since graduating from Carnegie Mellon in December of 1993, I have remained involved at my alma mater. For instance, the alumni newsletter interviewed me about Big Data in February of 2013. The next year, I spoke at CMU’s Silicon Valley campus about The Visual Organization, my book on data visualization. I hosted a webinar for the CMU Alumni Association in 2015 on why business communication typically fails. Finally, I’ve interviewed dozens of aspiring Tartans as a member of the Carnegie Mellon Admissions Council (CMAC).

I recently sat down with Stefanie Johndrow of CMU’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Among other things, we discuss how Carnegie Mellon prepared me for the real world, how to change careers, my favorite professors, and the interdisciplinary nature of higher education. We also expand upon some of the points that I made in a recent post.