Michael Morris’ article about mining student data greatly interests me. His chosen topic is one bursting with complexity. First, there are the moral implications of such actions. Is it an invasion of privacy? Or is it simply bettering the protection of the student population? These are questions which our country has struggled with since the birth of cryptography in relation to national security, and I am excited to explore these questions for myself. Next, there is the question of the efficiency of such a tactic–will it actually work? This question involves technology, and logical analysis, and behavioral psychology. As a person who loves the complexities of logic and of psychology, I feel that I will greatly enjoy exploring this topic. Following this trail of efficiency questions, another question springs up: how would a school go about doing such a thing? I ask this not only in the technological sense, but in the tactical sense. Of course it seems that a system would be necessary for finding patterns and pulling out certain alarming ones, but which information to use? And how far back? How often does one pull data, or is it sifted through on a constant basis? All of these are questions which I plan to ask when I begin writing this essay.