Week 4 Learning Journal

 Part One: Educational Goals

My educational goal basically leads me to becoming a Software Engineer at a notable company. I want to take every step necessary to attain this goal, and am excited to begin on this journey.

Part Two: Set Your Career Goals

Again, my career goal is to eventually become a Software Engineer. I envision myself achieving this because taking these classes will greatly prepare me for this role. 

Part Three: Percentile Guess of ETS Computer Science Test

After taking this test, I think I will be in the higher percentile. Maybe not the highest, but definitely up there. I have full confidence in myself and my abilities as well as the knowledge that is to be gained through these courses.

Part Four: What I Have Learned This Week

From this week's readings and activities, I have learned what ethical frameworks are, stakeholders, and the 5 types of claims. It felt like going straight into a philosophy class as I learned about Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics, and Ethical Egoism. I have been pushed to my limits with the outline on the ethics paper as I chose a quite difficult topic to debate about. It will be interesting as this progresses to see how my paper evolves, but I want to make sure it is a very well-rounded paper and up to par with the standards of this class. 

Thank you for reading my blog and have a nice day!

Week 3 Learning Journal - A.A.C.

Part 1 

One of the study topics I mentioned last week that I needed improvement in was the time management skill.  This has to do with making "every hour count." So, on the study tactics website that was provided, I chose the link that was about time management. The website gave me a template to fill out about how many hours of the week I do use, and then see how many hours you have leftover for studying. I did the calculation and came out with only 10 hours for studying. I think I over exaggerated some of the hours for the other things I do, because I usually have more than 10 hours per week to study. So, a good guess would probably be closer to 15-20 hours per week to study. However, I am glad I exaggerated, because if and when there is the worst case scenario that I actually do spend that much time per week, I need to be very careful to spend my time on my homework diligently and not get too distracted with other things. I can tackle this problem as follows: 1)Identify my time leaks. What am I doing that is making time drain away and I am not getting important things done? This is important 2) Plan a course of action. Since, I only have so much limited time to study, plan out my days more strictly. Don't say yes, yes, yes to so many activities that I find no room to study when I planned I needed to study. Be strict. 3) Evaluate and assess. After this course of action, I will plan on reviewing the successes and failures and redesign my course of action from there. 

Part 2

Learning about ethics this week has been so extremely interesting. From virtue theory, to utalitarianism, to Kan'ts ethics I have learned so much about a realm of philosophy that was untouched before. I've learned from the articles and videos that ethics has to do with morality - the right and wrong of things, and not so much about your feelings or what "seems" to be right. It involves guidelines to promoting ethics that are the frameworks of ethics. From the "Ethics and Law" document, I learned that ethics differs from the law in that it is a guideline rather than a control, it is free to follow rather than must having it followed, and ethics defines things as "immoral" rather than the law which says it's a "crime". 

Part 3

I've discussed above what i've learned from the philoshophy readings, as for the article "What every computer science major should know" I've learned that a portfolio is of far more importance than a resume. I also learned it's important to know the engineering side of things, as computer scientists *will* work with engineers.  We also must know the Unix philosophy, Systems Administration, some Programming Languages, Operating Systems, Networking and more. I am pleased to find that many of the courses at CS Online CSUMB will focus and deal with these things. 

Part 4

After reading the Code of Integrity for CSUMB CS Online, I learned it is very important to have authentic work in submitting your assignments. Never use others' code, never fail to give credit where it is due (i.e. if someone helped you), and never share your work with others. Mostly, I think the integrity has to fall on the student and they need to take ownership over the very work they are doing. They should never feel they need to "cheat" to get a better handle on the material. So, in conclusion, I think one needs to put in the efforts to truly learn what they are achieving and be an overall virtuous student. 

Week 2 Learning Journal ---- What A Week!

 Part 1: Review and Reflect Learning Stategy

This website showcases a plethora of study habits and tips that will help me on my journey at CSUMB. 

The top 3 items the website discusses that I feel I am good at are:

1) Scheduling: I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to study and when I will study it. I set up my Google Calendar with the dates and times of my studies as well as important appointments, work, etc. 

2) Surveying in the SQ3R method: I have already started doing this. I get a general idea of what I'm going to study before I begin my week. I lay it all out on a notebook and organize it based on difficulty, due-date, type, and time-allotment. This gives me a general idea of what I need to complete first and foremost and what I need to study on which days of my week. 

3) Getting the main idea from reading: Knowing the central idea/topic of an article, essay, or assignment is easy for me. This is very important because you need the main ideas to complete your tests/quizzes successfully and also to aid you in your future. 

The top 3 items that I feel I am weak in are: 

1) Making every hour count: I usually schedule out the most important factors, but sometimes tend to neglect the more healthy aspects I need to pay attention to, such as enough sleep, or eating at an appropriate time so that I'm not hungry while studying. Taking account of even my time spent with family or major appointments is crucial so that I don't end up with less time to have for studying. 

2) Never study within 30 minutes of going to sleep: I am usually a night owl, so this is definitely something I need to work on. I enjoy working on my projects/homework before sleeping so perhaps I have to reorganize my time so that I make sure I do my homework no more than 30 minutes before sleeping. 

3) Pay attention to the course outline/syllabus: I usually neglect the overall structure of the class, but I think this is very important, especially so I can prepare myself for larger projects in the future and know what I'm getting myself into. 

Part 2: Preview Time Management Skills

Now, for my activity log. Here are the screenshots:

Part 3: Project Management Basics:

My summary of the 3 presentations is as follows: 

From the first video, I learned that projects and operations are different whereas projects are temporary, unique, and closed after attaining objectives and operations are on-going, repetitive, and the objective is to sustain business. 

Furthermore, projects can fail due to 1) Failure in time management, 2) failure in cost management, 3) failure in scope management, 4) failure in quality management. There is a necessity for a project manager. They will provide leadership, communication, information technology, accounting, purchasing and problem solving. 

From the second video, I learned about a work breakdown structure. This is a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the team to accomplish the project objective and create the required deliverables. The work breakdown structure is an overall picture of all the steps in creating your deliverables in your project. This is very useful in seeing the overall scope of the project and helps one to stay focused on the objective - the deliverables - instead of being distracted. 

The third video defines and explains the Gantt Chart. It is a type of Bar Chart, developed Henry Gantt that illustrates a project schedule. There are terminal elements and summary elements of this work breakdown structure. There are tasks before other tasks and you cannot complete the following tasks until the previous are completed. This tool allows you to complete your project in an efficient and organized way. It is very useful for long-term projects.

Part 4: Check out Previous Capstones:

First presentation: Mirrored Fantasy

The type of project was a game on a website. 

The project was well done because he put a lot of effort into it. He fine-tunes his skills in game development through it and it was very intricate. 

Some things I like are how Andrew mentioned the weaknesses of his editing process such as noting how he should've used TypeScript instead of JavaScript so that it would of saved him hours of debugging. This is useful information. Also he noted how he wished to plan out the steps of creating on a day-to-day basis instead of week-to-week, this is useful as well. Lastly, he mentioned using a game engine rather than writing his own which is good to know.

This capstone could be improved by adding more levels and intricacies to the game. It would make it more interesting. Perhaps there could be a riveting storyline behind the game, character development, and more customizable options(such as editing your character etc.).

Second presentation: Date and Be Safe

The type of project was an online dating website with a strong focus on security features that protects the users from scammers. 

As for the project being well done, I think they put a good amount of effort into it, but also maybe they should have added more features, especially security features so that it would look at least more viable. 

I did enjoy this capstone in a way, it was nice to see the chat feature and the "Tinder" swiping feature of the cards. It was also interesting that you could not sign up unless you allowed video access and geolocation access. So, it does have its perks and it looks like a diamond in the rough.

It could be improved because he mentioned at the beginning that it was a work in progress and they weren't able to fully flesh out all the features - I think this shows a lack in planning and scheduling on their part. It could also be improved through adding more security features, adding more features in general, and making it look more polished and modern. 

 

 

Third presentation: Stuff Ride

The type of project was an online website where a user could order a transporter to deliver items for sale. Supposed transporters are to be experienced and know how to tie down items in a truck/van so that they do not break or get mishandled. 

The project I see was well done, maybe he could have fleshed it out a bit more with the items mentioned in the "Future Additions" page. However, it seems he put enough effort into it to the extent that it could even be a fully functioning site.  

 I like how he mentioned about how he debugged a problem where the transporters weren't showing up in the search. It was when he did a test run with two users and two transporters, so it's nice to see that he made sure his program was working well. 

Overall, the project seemed to utilize all the information he learned in his classes at CSUMB and there is not much that needs to be improved, just what I noted above of the additional items from the "Future Additions" page. 

Part 5: Summary of Week

This week has got me thinking more about time-management skills and project-management skills as well. It was very interesting to learn about the work breakdown structure and Gantt chart. The video "The future is faster than you think" also got me thinking about the expansion of technology in such a short amount of time. Furthermore, the post about Software Engineering Trends for 2023 was very interesting. The chart that breakdowns the most popular programming languages surprised me. It seems Python is taking the lead here, more than Java, C++ or PHP. 

The Industry Analysis Paper was a refreshment for me as I was able to learn more about one of my favorite companies, Google. I was able to learn more about what a global technology company is and what they have to offer. I learned about the history of Google and it started in a university, just like CSUMB. Now that they're a large corporation, they take care of their employees very well. They give their employees a vast amount of amenities and benefits. It shows me what kind of company I am looking for in the future for long-term -- one with those kinds of assets. 

The peer review portion was fun to engage in. I enjoyed reviewing others' papers and giving them positive and constructive feedback. Each person has their own weaknesses and strengths so having another brain look at my paper and then myself looking at someone else's is extremely beneficial. 

Overall, I would say this was a very successful week. In applying the study tactics that were mentioned in this course, I was good at applying time management skills and scheduling as well. It is extremely important to be self-disciplined and not get caught up in distractions. And as my TA said in our meeting this week, procrastination is not an option in this class. I am glad that I am excited about this coursework, so I don't feel the need to procrastinate at all. It comes naturally to me. So, this week was a solid 10/10 and I look forward to the weeks to come. Let's go! 

Week 1 Journal Post - Some new things learned.

 This week felt like embarking on a new journey in my life, all in all I can say it was a very successful week with all assignments accomplished. I felt I put my 100% in them and even though I have limited time due to work and other responsibilities, I felt I did a good job. 

Some things I learned this week was more information about the megagiant corporation Google from my Industry Analysis Outline paper. It's interesting that Google has been around a little over a quarter of a century and seeing it grow and flourish as a company is something to marvel at. Some cool things I learned was that it began at Stanford university as a research project. I also learned that 97% of the employees at Google say it's a great place to work. That's really high! I've heard all the stories about them treating their employees with all kinds of benefits, so it's no wonder so many people love working there.

Furthermore, it has me thinking what kind of company I want to work at later down the line. I obviously now want a company that treats me like how Google would treat their employees. I think it is a good practice to research into a company before embarking on the journey of working there. Knowing all the pros and cons can give you a good idea of what decision to make. 

Also, the Industry Analysis Outline paper got me thinking about enhancing my skills to be a more well-rounded individual for businesses that are hiring. It got me thinking which specialized area of computer science I want to go into. Is it data science, a software engineer, app development? I have a good understanding so far, but now I plan to delve deeper into my interests to find out which area interests me the most. 

Overall, this was a very good week and I look forward to the weeks to come. Onwards!