Course Analysis of Capstone Project

This quarter has flown by with only a few more weeks left! So far, my biggest success during this course was setting up the SQL database for the PetPals project using queries. Although I wasn’t as familiar with SQL as with other languages, I learned that I could still apply a similar logic to complete my tasks. Also, I realized that I’ve developed the knowledge to be able to Google search what I needed help on. When I first began the OSU CS program, it was difficult to know what I needed to look up when I was stuck. Now, I have a better idea of the steps that I need to take to get to the solution.

This course has been a great experience so far. Below if my SWOT analysis of it:

Strengths:

• Provided the opportunity to work with a team
  • This allows students to get real experience working with code that is written by others and to collaborate to achieve a common goal.
• Students are responsible for managing their deadlines
  • With no hard deadlines set, this teaches students how to be responsible and spread their workload across a span of time, similar to how it is in the workforce.
• Students are able to define some of the project requirements since the requirements are not always clear
  • In software engineering roles, some requirements are not clearly defined, so this teaches students how to use their best judgement on what needs to be done or to ask their managers (in this case professors) for clarification.
• TAs and professors are very responsive and provide feedback throughout the course.

Weaknesses

• Some project requirements are not as clear as they could be, so students have had to ask for clarification. This creates some blockers and can hold up development.

Opportunities

• It would be great to know what is widely used in the industry (i.e. how most companies host their databases). It may be helpful to have a discussion thread on this specifically so it is more of an open discussion and professors/TAs can provide their input as well.

Threats

• From my standpoint, there aren’t any serious issues that could affect the quality of this course.