ASCII to Unicode Migration of Legacy Windows MFC App; Social Media and Overtourism: Exacerbation, Fallout, and Response 150 views

One April morning during my semester studying abroad in Siena, Italy, the streets were unusually full of people. I quickly realized that these were not Senese, but rather large tour groups. The large group of tourists taking pictures and listening to tour guides made it significantly slower for me to walk to my classes. The tourist season had started, and this became a regular experience for my walks to class and around the city. While taking longer to go to school or work may seem like a minor inconvenience, it impacts the quality of life for people living in the city. There are many other ways that overtourism affects the quality of life for residents. Then I started thinking about how beautiful Siena is: perfect for an Instagram post. I thought whether more tourists be visiting certain places to get photos for their social media and how this is affecting communities. My research paper investigates how social media is impacting tourism. The summer after 3rd year, I interned at a wireless device maker that specializes in mine safety devices based in Lynchburg, Virginia. At my internship, I had two main projects I was working on: migrating a legacy C++ app from ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) to Unicode and writing a test fixture platform for the boards of an in-development mine safety product. My capstone paper focuses on my work on the Unicode migration. My technical report reflects on the significance of a Unicode migration from my summer internship and value of the migration. I include why the migration is important, an explanation of the tools and processes used, results from the migration, and future work needed. My technical report and research paper are connected because they are both related to global communication. My technical capstone paper is on my internship where I migrated an app from ASCII to Unicode, the cornerstone standard that enables global communication in world languages. My research paper topic is on how social media is affecting overtourism. Unicode one of the key technologies that enable people to communicate with others on social media in their native language. While the internet and social media have improved communication across the world and brought many other benefits, they can exacerbate existing problems or create new problems.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

social media; overtourism; Unicode migration

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Technical Advisor: Rosanne Vrugtman, Briana Morrison STS Advisor: Karina Ripley

English

2026-05-05