TCU Digital Culture & Data Analytics Program

10/15/2026

DCDA Majors and Minors!

Advising season has begun 📋

Check your email for information about setting up your appointment.

Contact Dr. Rode with questions.

10/09/2026

This week: Multimedia Authoring: Sound & Podcasting (WRIT 40563) is our class spotlight! 🎧

The official class description: “Explores the complex relationship between new media, culture, and design, with particular emphasis on the production of sound and podcasting. Course emphasizes concepts in rhetoric, multimedia, and authorship in digital environments. Students design and compose a variety of multimedia products incorporating sound, print, image, and other modes.”

Contact Dr. Rode with questions!

10/02/2026

This week: The DCDA Class Spotlight highlights a fan favorite, Writing Games (WRIT 20303)

The official course description: “Students explore the rhetorical dimensions of writing within and about games, considering both how games are a form of writing and writing hybridizes genre conventions. While both games and writing have long been important elements of culture, students in this class will come to a better understanding of how the two are mutually informative. Students will consider how games inform writing, how writing informs games, and how both games and writing compose the world at large.”

Email Dr. Rode with questions!

09/30/2026

The studio is here to help! 💻

Work on your digital projects, get support on them, and rent out helpful gear.

Located on the second floor of Scharbauer!

09/25/2026

Our DCDA class spotlight this week is …. 🥁

Intro to Coding in the Humanities! WRIT 20833

The official course description: “This course is designed as an introduction to coding for students in the Humanities and/or the Digital Culture and Data Analytics (DCDA) Minor. Hence, students will be introduced to the basics of a computer programming language (such as Python or R) as it pertains to the intellectual, cultural, and creative work central to the Humanities.”

Every Friday we highlight an exciting class DCDA majors and minors get to take. Email Dr. Rode with questions.

09/23/2026

The All Majors Career Fair is TODAY!

From 3pm-6pm, companies will be lined up at the recreation center to meet you! No matter what your class year is, or what you’re looking for.

DCDA majors and minors, this is an incredible opportunity.

Remember to prepare:

📝Print your resume
👔Practice your elevator pitch
📊Research companies before approaching

Good luck horned frogs!

05/05/2026

Thinking about an internship for Fall 2026?

DCDA 40273: DCDA Internship gives students a way to connect digital culture, data analytics, writing, communication, design, research, and technology skills to real workplace experience.

The course counts for three hours of academic elective credit toward the DCDA major or minor. Interns complete digitally intensive work such as research, data analytics, audio or video production, web authoring, social media, or related project work for 8-20 hours per week, totaling 120-160 hours during the semester.

The timing is good. NACE reports that employers expect to hire 3.9% more interns in 2025-26 than they did in 2024-25, and internships can be an important path toward full-time opportunities.

Internships are especially valuable because they help students build evidence of what they can do:

applying classroom skills to real projects

working with teams, clients, users, or community partners

translating technical work for nontechnical audiences

reflecting on how digital tools and data shape decisions

building examples for resumes, portfolios, interviews, and graduate applications

Students interested in DCDA 40273 for Fall 2026 should start planning now. Internship placements, approvals, and registration steps can take time.

Interested? Review the DCDA Internship page, then contact Dr. Curt Rode at [email protected] to discuss enrollment.

Learn more:
https://cdex.tcu.edu/dcda-internship/



https://naceweb.org/job-market/trends-and-predictions/employers-expect-to-hire-nearly-four-percent-more-interns-this-year

05/05/2026

AI ethics is not just an abstract debate. It is a practical design question.

MIT News recently highlighted a research framework for testing whether AI decision-support systems align with human-defined ethical criteria. The example is useful for students: an AI system might optimize for measurable goals like cost or reliability, while still creating unfair outcomes for different communities.

That is exactly why DCDA matters.

Students working with data and technology need more than technical fluency. They also need the habits of the humanities and social sciences: asking who is affected, which values are engaged, what trade-offs are hidden, and how evidence should be communicated before systems are deployed.

Questions worth asking:

Who benefits from this automated decision?

Who becomes more vulnerable?

Which values are measurable, and which are harder to quantify?

How should technical systems be tested against human consequences?

Read the MIT News article:
https://news.mit.edu/2026/evaluating-autonomous-systems-ethics-0402

SEED-SET is a new evaluation framework that can test whether recommendations of autonomous systems are well-aligned with human-defined ethical criteria. It can also pinpoint unexpected scenarios that violate ethical preferences.