HASCS officials say that getting students onthe network and educating them about thepossibilities has become just as important as thetechnical job of maintaining hardware.
"It's Priority one," Ouchark says.
But for most students andadministrators, the primary pull of the networkremains personal. The network, it seems, allowsfor a freedom of expression that just isn'tpossible in the non-electronic world.
Some students have found that even the mostintimate encounters can occur over the network.Miyagishima, the computer review editor, says hebecame so close to a Wellesley College studentover IRC--the Internet's Relay Chat--that heeventually went out on a couple of dates with her.
"A couple of weeks ago we thought we should gettogether," Miyagishima says. "It was pretty muchthe same as I thought it would be. I knew she wasJapanese from her name. I had been told frompeople that she was pretty, and she was, in fact,pretty."
"I made a good friend," he says. "I probablywouldn't have met her otherwise. She has [another]boyfriend now."
CONTRIBUTORS TO THE SERIES:
REPORTERS AND EDITORS: TARA H. ARDEN-SMITH,ELIZABETH T. BANGS, ELIE G. KAUNFER, JOE MATHEWS,CHRISTOPHER ORTEGA, SARAH E. SCROGIN, JOHN E.STAFFORD, ETHAN M. TUCKER, ANNA D. WILDE.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMIE W. BILLETT
DESIGN BY SORELLE B. BRAUN, HYUNG Y. CHUN