Who am I?
My name is Florian Hurlbert. I graduated class of 2025 from Muhlenberg College. I'm hoping to get into a Human Computer Interaction PHD program. In my off time I've been looking for a job and working on my creative projects.
I got my Bachelors degree in Computer Science & English and Creative Writing. I get a lot of weird looks when I mention my double major, almost always followed by a question of “Why? \ How? \ They’re so different?”
The fact that they were so different is part of what I loved about them. I got to stretch my brain in so many different ways. In one class, I was learning a language of logic and steps. I was challenged to look for ways to solve problems, preferably as efficiently as possible. Then I go to another class where I’m constantly challenged to look beyond the “logical”, and I’m taught the “rules” of writing only to turn around and be challenged to then break them.
These two have always felt like opposite sides of the same coin. As a writer, I found it easy to write documentation and communicate what my program was doing. From the tech side of things, code was the backbone of so many forms of media - Want to build a website that displays your work? Or what about the many social media applications that (in an ideal world) allow people to connect with each other and share their creations? Most interesting and exciting to me is the interactive possibilities, whether it’s a graphic users can play with to enhance a news article or a narrative VR experience. The possibilities of video games fascinates me, especially in the area of Player Agency, and how they experience the consequences of their virtual actions.
My Lab Parnters
Hobbies
Dungeons and Dragons
I was introduced to the famous tabletop roleplaying game in 2015, through at the time the brand new D&D club at my middle school. I shall forever be thankful to the history teacher who taught middleschoolers D&D by DMing for all 20 of them at once! My father, a first edition veteran, was very proud of my new interest and ran a game for my friends and I that lasted through most of highschool. When I got to Muhlenberg College I learned about the Myths & Mules club, a student organization dedicated to teaching new players the game and connecting Dungeon Masters to players. The minute I joined that Discord server, I signed away my next four years of evenings.
Today I play all different kinds of D&D. I'm in online games with my friends from college, and in person games with total strangers I met at my local game store. I play everything from games starting at level 1 to level 10, games where we use completely homebrew classes, races, and backgrounds, little to no combat games, very unserious silly games and games with such intense themes I get asked why I enjoy playing them.
For those who like it, I think D&D can be a fantastic way to practice your creative skills and it can even push you to learn new ones. It gives me a regular outlet to practice my writing, particularly my character crafting skills. I've had to learn to get much better at improv and roleplay. I've even taken up digital art specifically because I needed to make references for my characters and I wanted to be able to do it all on my own.
Movies
I may regrettably be a cinephile, (a person who really really likes movies) but I'm promise I'm the chill kind who just wants to talk your ear off, not the annoying kind who only watches old movies or looks down on people for their movie choices.
It started with me constantly mentioning movies I wanted to see, and my roomate saying we should watch them together. One evening we were both free and we finally watch Alien. We were still discussing the movie two hours later, and we agreed to watch Aliens the next night. After Aliens, we knew we had to keep going, so we compiled a list of movies we wanted to see and we found the time to watch as many as possible.
In 2025 we managed to watch 30 movies together, 24 of them being completely new to me and gaining new insights into the other 6. I've been adding the posters to a tiermaker, and we periodically rank the movies. This is my most recent ranking:
A couple of movie recommendations I'd make from these:
Parasite, Directed by Bong Joon Ho - I don't know if a dubbed version of this movie exists, but if you can stand it I highly suggest watching it in Korean with subtitles as the original performances are incredible. This film shows class disparity in South Korea through both the lens of comedy and horror. The set, constructed by the filmmakers, includes a gorgeous home at the literal top of society, surrounded by tall green hedges, giving them only a view of beauty. In contrast, the main characters live below street level in crowded basement homes, several staircases down from the rich home. The desperation of some of the characters is fascinating.
Hellraiser (1987) directed by Clive Barker - This is a horror film I feel like a lot of people have heard of, but in my circles very few people had actually seen. I was inspired to watch it by "The Box", a song by ICE NINE KILLS based on the movie. I had low expectations, and so was blown away by how great the special effects were. If you appreciate great practical effects (and have a strong stomach) I highly recommend checking out this movie next halloween. I will say that the story has some strong flaws, particularly in it's commentary on the BDSM community. That being said it's quite funny if you don't take it seriously! The last few scenes had us in absolute stitches.
Synecdoche, New York directed by Charlie Kaufman - A peak cinephile movie! It's not for everyone, but if you're interested in contemplating questions such as "What is art?" or "What is acting?", you will probably find some interesintg perspectives here. This film follows Caden Cotard, a theater director who recieves the MacArther grant. He tries to create a giant theater piece with which he continaully tries to mirror real life. His life away from the piece is also shown, in disparate scenes where things appear to degrade. It's a very open ended piece, and I highly suggest a group viewing as you will probably want to talk about what you just saw.