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!