It's always a funny situation when the speakers talk about software related stuff. I mostly just smile and pretend like I understand what they're saying...
Just kidding. I try very hard to understand the stuff presented. For Su Yuen's part of the workshop it was all good until a certain point, but I realized that if I had checked IVLE I would've known the existence of the tutorial. O..ops? I promise to always check IVLE from now on! The Git introduction was great; I think I understood most of it - the commands at least, so that's nice. Prior to the PHP workshop I went through half of a supposed 4 hour course on Codecademy (the best for the layman - me), so I had an idea of what Joel was saying, but for MySQL I'll just have to go check it out myself... soon.
In yesterday's class, Colin introduced us to software engineering, including bits of project management and roles to play. The best part about 3216 is how it strives to develop us into more versatile developers who will hopefully triangulate the learning of design, programming and business, no matter of where we come from. It's all still very exciting and I hope it stays that way.
I've been reading everyone else's blogs (through Feedly on mobile - it sucks when there are no pictures guys, hint hint???) and it appears that most people have already started feeling the tension from the bulk of work we have to do and the strong competition we have. I don't get murderous aurae coming from my peers (...yet) but the strict timeline is definitely unnerving.
Another thing a couple of people commented about was how quick everyone got to forming groups. For that all I can do is count my stars - I've been lucky enough to have friends in the module. Hi friends Keith and Zhengyuan and all my new friends! I'm also very thankful to my last group of guys who approached me - that's very thoughtful thank you for keeping me in mind, I'll give my all. I'm still excited as hell about everything in the module - seeing my friends, meeting new people, learning new stuff, everyone working together; all of the rosy painting we still have currently. I'm fairly sure this won't be lasting, but enjoy it while it lasts, right?
Last note - I'm the most excited about the illustrator workshop on Saturday. I! LOVE! ILLUSTRATOR!!!
Ok last last note - I decided to spend time with my dog instead of vectoring something for the post, so this week it'll be a pic of me and my pal. Also the guy who did his show-and-tell about his dog - contact me, we can talk about dogs. Cat people please look for Colin instead!
Lol.. re competitiveness, this class is a bit strange because:
ReplyDeletei) There's no need to be competitive for the conventional reasons; in most classes you need to be competitive because of the limited number of A+/A/A- given out. In CS3216 I can give out 100% A+ if the projects deserved it. I have a long-standing agreement with the department on this, and each year at STePS I bring the Vice Dean of Undergraduate Studies on a tour of the projects so he can see for himself the standards.
ii) That said, there's a need to be competitive because you don't want your projects to stand in sharp contrast with other much more awesome projects. If anything you'd want to be the most awesome because a) it's very satisfying and b) STePS often has recruiters and you want to stand out. :)
Hi Colin! I actually love how there's no need to be conventionally competitive, but that we're all in a journey to hone our skills and show the best of ourselves. I'm glad the class is the way it is, because I'm getting a lot of help not just from my team but friends in the class too! Starting with so little experience is a struggle in itself, but the atmosphere is the class makes me look forward to classes, projects, and a real cool STePS showcase :^)
DeleteOops! Apologies for replacing Illustrator workshop with a UI/UX workshop instead. The reason why I felt UI/UX was more important than teaching you guys Illustrator was because there are THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of illustrator tutorials and videos on Google which you can pick and learn on your own anytime. For UI/UX however, there's not much resource on how to do this well, and I felt this was hyper important for your assignments moving forward :)
ReplyDeleteHi Su Yuen! I was excited for the Illustrator workshop because it's something I'm stronger in (as opposed to the PHP/Github talks), but I love and - I'd even say - preferred the UI/UX design workshop! I've been reading a lot about UI/UX but the workshop was a lot more insightful; it's great to learn first-hand from a designer. I had a lot of problems in my design flow at the start, but after following the process you shared, we got the flow streamlined much more efficiently :^)
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