Karen’s range of interests and areas of study make SIMS a great program for her. She knows she can combine her interests in business, information technology, biotech, and computer science. All these interests can be incorporated into her Master’s study, but she is at the beginning of the program and not sure what is available in these and other disciplines. She thinks there may be some other cross-over disciplines she doesn't yet know about that could help shape her Master’s focus.

While looking through the SIMS website, she comes across a section entitled “Uniquely SIMS” on interdisciplinary study. She decides to review the connections SIMS has with other departments. Looking at this section, she first finds links to nearly all other departments at Berkeley.  She decides to look further into what the “Business” section has to offer.Here she sees photos of department buildings and professors, as well as a links to professors’ websites, a map of the campus, photos of the paths from SIMS to the locations of the different departments, and a calendar containing information about seminars, events, and conferences held around campus. She finds an evening talk about the biotech industry at Haas, with speakers from SIMS, Haas, and bioinformatics. Following the link, she finds pictures of the speakers and the projects they are working on, as well as pictures of similar seminars. Being new to the area, she chooses to map her route on the photo-enhanced campus map available to her at this site.  She selects Haas from the selection of thumbnails on the map and then prints her map from SIMS to Haas, which contains pictures of key landmarks along her trip as well as detailed text directions. Karen hurries off to her talk, armed with all the necessary information for her to make it there worry-free and well informed about the details of the discussion. She loves how smoothly her new life at SIMS is beginning!