Month: May 2022

As this is probably the last blog I am going to be doing I wanted to intentionally take some time to reflect on this course, and the project I am working on for Senior Capstone. I haven’t discussed the project very much because it is a completely different kind of project than I am used to. In the beginning there objectives and a plan for how to meet those objectives. But as the quarter has gone on this project has become more of a spelunking / trial and error project to give the client ideas for how they might build their end product in the future. My project is called Wine Data Lake, and the goal of the project was to build, or identify, processes to extract data from winery tech sheets saved in PDFs. A second goal was to store the data exported. The goal of the client was to have some ideas for how to build their back end frameworks for a website that they could use as a tool with friends and potential investors as a starting point for their future allthewineries.com project. Our final deliverable will be a list of things we tried, what worked, what issues did we run into, and what data were we able to collect. For all intents and purposes, this project is more of a research project, though I do not think it was originally expected to be that.  So, with that in mind: what worked and what didn’t work

WORKED: Despite my partner and I being a team of two, living on opposites sides of the US, and both having fulltime jobs, I think we worked pretty well together. Most of the conversation was asynchronous. But with the time zone differences, we had about an hour window each night after I got home from work and before he went to bed for the night. We did well in utilizing that time when needed. With both of us having weekend availability we were able to overcome almost all time zone differences. In the future I think it would be a good idea to have a better plan for working synchronously if working with people in different time zones. I do think we both also did a good job of pulling together the things we needed to do exactly when we needed to do it.

COULD HAVE DONE BETTER: There are two things that I think could have gone better on this project. The first would be for the client to have an actual project with a deliverable. Instead, it has felt all along like it was an idea that a group of people got together and imagined up over a few glasses of wine. I think that the direction of our project would have been different if we had known/understood that the client wanted ideas on how to get the data from PDFs into a database. The other objectives for this project are more like stretch goals than real scope of work that could be completed.

The other thing we could have done better is tied to that. In the beginning my partner had an idea of how to get the data out. He found a tool that we could use and it seemed easy and black and white. I would have preferred both he and I work for a week to identify options and list pros and cons and then decide on a path forward with our client. Instead it felt very much like “I’m driving, get in the back and I’ll let you know when we are there”. I also felt almost embarrassed talking to our customer about the database stuff when it was clear that was more of an afterthought for them.  I intend to do better on this before our next client meeting.

CONCLUSION: So in conclusion… this has been a fun project and also a confusing project at times. I think the biggest take away I have from it is to clearly define the expectations with the customer and develop success criteria with them before having a plan.

When driving at highway speeds, it is really easy to feel an out of balance tire. The car shakes and the overall feel of the drive is rougher than normal. But it is much harder to notice an out of balance tire when driving around town. Sometimes a car may drift left or right, but that could also be the road or wind. Infact, the only way to really tell in that situation is after damage has already begun and the tread of the tire shows unusual wear patterns.

One of the things I have really struggled with throughout this online postbaccalaureate program is maintaining a healthy work <-> school <-> life balance. While it may be easy to push through times of stress, lack of sleep, grabbing quick meals, ignoring social gatherings, skipping exercise, etc… those times of being out of balance has had significant emotional, mental, and physical consequences. As I reflect on the past few years I know that I have found a few tricks that have helped me (when I use them) and I would like to share them here.

• UNPLUG TO UNWIND: Between work, school, cell phone, and tablet – I have my face buried in screens/electronic 15+ hours a day. When Covid hit I started taking 1 hour decompression breaks between the end of the work day and the start of my daily school work. No electronics. No input from the world. No to do lists. No pressure. The only thing I allowed myself was sitting in the stillness and letting my body unclench, breathe, and letting my mind reset. Decompressing has made a huge impact on me physically, mentally, and emotionally.

• FIND YOUR JUMPER CABLES: There isn’t much time for hanging out with family and friends when working full time and going to school. But I have found that if I pick 1 or 2 people who always leave me feeling recharged, and I allow myself a few hangouts (1-2 per month) that it leaves me feeling revived, and sometimes resuscitated. Find the person who is your jumpstart and make time for them.

• EVERY DAY IS NOT CHORE DAY: In reality there are always little tasks that have to be done. For me, dishes must be done and all garbage picked up before going to bed. But for the bigger stuff, I have found that if I designate a day to catch up (laundry, vacuum, scrub bathrooms, etc) then I am able to not feel like a failure at adulting by letting those things go all the other days.

• HAVE A PLAN: For this computer science degree- there is always something else to look at, read, or code to try. The best thing I have come up with to manage it all is to have a plan, outline my tasks and then set a “Want” and a “Good Enough” expectation. This one is probably the hardest one for me to follow through on. But when I do give myself permission to have done good enough, or worked on it long enough – it has felt very freeing. I have found that having that “good enough” option, rather than going for a week on 3 hrs of sleep each night just to get one more thing / a few more points, has actually helped me to do better in planning my projects /programs out. Do I want an A on all things? Yes. But if I have worked my plan and done my best then a B on this one assignment is good enough.

• USE THE BEST FUEL: Its so easy to grab a quick snack or fast food or eat no food and instead chug a lot of coffee. But the mind and body both need the best foods to run smoothly. I get hung up on this all the time. Quick is easy and fast. But when I do take the time and try to have a more balanced diet vs a protein shake and bag of chips – I am able to think more clearly, have better focus, and sleep better. All of these things are critical for keeping your body in balance chemically.

As I was writing each one of these- all I kept thinking is how bad I am at them still. Haha. I know it is important to keep ourselves in balance. I know it is important to take breaks from stress, focus on life/living instead of constantly “head down, push through”. But I also know all of these things are easier said than done sometimes. If I was asked to give my past self a bit of advice as I was starting this program, these are the things I would tell myself. Over the last few weeks of my OSU postbacc, Im going to continue striving to implement these things and keep my metaphorical tires balanced.