Matt Carroll
MIT Media Lab
Boston, MA USA
"This is a great time to take a risk. This is the time to move to another city, to do something exciting, to get together with a friend and start a company. Go start something new."
Career Roadmap
Matt's work combines: Journalism, Technology, and Being Creative
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Journalism
Northeastern University
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life has been direct
1.
When he was a kid, he loved reading the comics and sports sections of the newspapers, then he slowly worked his way back to the stories on the front page.
2.
He started noticing that between different papers and different stories, there were elements that could make or break a piece; became fascinated with the craft of journalism.
3.
When he was in middle school, he and his friends started a science fiction journal; then, when he was in high school, he took journalism classes.
4.
He decided to briefly drop out of college to start his own newspaper; it ultimately failed, but he learned about every step in the process of founding and developing a paper.
5.
Somewhere along the way, he realized that data could make a real difference within journalism; he started learning about coding to focus on the data.
6.
Spent 26 years working at the Boston Globe as a journalist, specializing in database-related stories.
7.
Even though he had a comfortable job, he saw the opening in the MIT Media Lab and realized it was a huge opportunity to influence journalism and give back in a new way.
8.
When he made the transition to MIT, he was intimidated by the code-heavy environment; says he settled in by finding his confidence and asking the right questions.
