Building on popular applications in digital photography, photo editing, and image sharing, the “selfie” has proliferated as a social practice and was named 2013 “word of the year.” The Picture Yourself application puts these visual storytelling habits to work in helping improve college access and providing students with a tool for navigating the college process from beginning to end. With support from the UC Office of the President and the Data and Democracy Initiative, an interdisciplinary class at the Berkeley Center for New Media built Picture Yourself this fall. Stay tuned for news of its distribution and further development.
