Sophie Brenner
The CoLA Connection: Sophie Brenner on her social media internship, Hobby House, and tackling a senior thesis
By Jacqueline Magno | Social Media Intern
August 1, 2022
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When I started my social media internship for the College of Liberal Arts back in 2020, I logged onto a Zoom call from my childhood bedroom wearing a nervous smile and my cleanest pajamas. Having spent most of my year slogging through online courses and staring up at the ceiling, I was both grateful for the new job and doubtful of my ability to excel at it. I couldn’t even explain to my parents what the Liberal Arts were – how was I supposed to do the same before hundreds of people online? Hiding from the coronavirus hadn’t exactly left me knowledgeable in the college’s buildings and programs, either.
Luckily, I wasn’t the only new social media intern who had logged onto that Zoom call. And when I sat down to interview her two years later, I discovered that she, too, felt somewhat dispirited starting her job in the middle of a pandemic.
Rhetoric & Writing and Conversational Artificial Intelligence UT alum, Sophie Brenner.
“While in quarantine, I felt very disconnected from UT and the College of Liberal Arts,” shared Sophie Brenner, a recent graduate of the Forty Acres and my coworker of two years. “I just couldn’t identify with my school because I wasn’t on campus to experience it. That’s why social media had a huge impact in shaping college culture during that time, and it’s been really cool to witness the inception of our college’s social media with my team.”
While she cherishes her time spent talking Instagram strategy over Zoom calls and cracking jokes in Slack channels, Brenner especially enjoyed returning to campus and attending the wide variety of events the college had to offer.
“I loved working the Fall Carnival, Poetry on the Pond – even the 2021 Commencement, where we stood in the rain for 14 hours without umbrellas,” she recalled with a laugh. “It was just so nice returning to in-person events. It really showed us that people wanted to get involved and feel as though they had a sense of community on campus.”
During her time on the Forty Acres, Brenner studied Rhetoric and Writing within the College of Liberal Arts. She also studied Conversational Artificial Intelligence through Humanities Honors Program – an interdisciplinary degree initiative that allows students to design their own major by taking classes across various disciplines. Though she was initially skeptical about studying artificial intelligence without a strong background in technology, she quickly discovered how to apply her passions for writing and communication within the field.
“Whenever you interact with a chat bot on a website, there are people who have written its responses and developed its personality,” Brenner explained. “I was always more interested in the writing and linguistic aspects of artificial intelligence as opposed to the technological programming behind it, so it was cool that the Humanities Program allowed me to focus on what I was interested in.”
Brenner recently concluded her studies in Conversational Artificial Intelligence by writing a senior thesis, wherein she designed her own chat bot through an activity-tracking app called Hobby House.
“When I took my first design class at UT in the fall of 2019, I drew this ghost with a plant on top of his head and was like, ‘This would be a really cute character for a chat bot.’ Two years later, I was having a hard time coming up with ideas for my thesis, and that idea was really the only thing I had to cling onto,” she said. “The way that Hobby House works is that it’s essentially a virtual house with separate rooms that store your hobby information. There’s a library to track the books you’ve read, a kitchen to store the recipes you’ve tried. It ended up being way more fun than I thought it would be.”
Nonetheless, Brenner made it clear that completing her thesis was no easy feat.
“My thesis – which ended up being about 60 pages – was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in college. It’s not like an assignment for class, where a professor sets the deadlines for you. It was really up to me to pace myself in my research and writing, and it was super easy to fall behind.”
Brenner attributes her success in both her academic and professional life to her grandmother, who remains a constant source of emotional support in her life.
“My grandma is my best friend; we’ve been best friends since I was a little baby,” Brenner shared with a smile. “There were multiple times in college wherein I’d be so overwhelmed, especially while I was writing my thesis. And I would call her, and she would tell me, ‘Well, do you need to cry? Maybe you just need to empty your bucket.’ That’s what she would say.”
UT 2022 graduate, Sophie Brenner, alongside her former employer, Katie Lathrop.
Brenner also gains inspiration from the staff she works with in the Student Affairs Division of the College of Liberal Arts.
“People like Katie Lathrop and Liz Clayton make a huge difference when it comes to shaping the CoLA experience on campus. And Associate Dean Mia Carter is probably one of the best people I’ve ever met. I’ve never met anyone else who is as capable of making everyone feel like they are the most important person in the room.”
She hopes that her journey as both a UT graduate and a social media intern will inspire her younger siblings to pursue their interests in the future.
“I have two sisters, a brother, and two step-siblings. I’m the oldest out of all of them, so I’m the first to attend and graduate college,” Brenner explained. “I want to be the cool older sister that does fun things and makes them also want to do fun things.”
In my two years of working alongside Sophie Brenner, I can definitely attest that she fulfills the role of the cool older sister. From decorating our shared cubicle together to exchanging advice over McDonald’s at two in the morning, I am incredibly grateful that the friendly face I met over a Zoom call in 2020 turned out to be an amazing coworker and an even more amazing friend. Brenner has taught both me and our newest social media interns how to persist amid the toughest of academic and personal circumstances, and I am certain she will continue to carry that influence wherever life takes her next.
To check out our team’s work, be sure to follow @liberalartsut on both Instagram and TikTok. To learn more about the Humanities Honors Program, you can visit their website.