A SWOT analysis of CS467:
Strengths:
This course has a few strengths. The first being is the flexibility, creativity and ownership that is afforded to the students regarding the term project. There are a significant number of pre-created project ideas that the students can choose to focus on during the course. If a student doesn’t find any idea particularly interesting, or if they have their own idea, they can go that direction if they choose to do so. Furthermore, a group has complete ownership over their project in that they get to choose what tech stack to use and how to implement the features.
Another strength of the course is the discussion posts, blog posts and extra credit opportunities. These are good assignments to provide a buffer for one’s grade (in the case that the group work isn’t going as planned). There are several extra credit opportunities, and each student is allowed a total of 30 points extra credit which is a fair amount of extra credit opportunity.
Weaknesses:
This course also has some weaknesses. The downside of flexibility and creativity is that the criteria and requirements of the project is mostly unclear. The main criteria is that a person spends roughly 10 hours a week on their group project. However, 10 hours of effort varies person-by-person. What someone needs 10 hours to do may only take another person an hour to do. It all depends on the prior experience and knowledge a person has in the area that they are working in.
Opportunities:
There are some opportunities for improvement for this course. I think people should be allowed to work on solo projects. I personally dislike group work and think I would have more motivation to create a good project if I could do it myself. Also, working on a vague group project with others is extremely difficult – as there is no team lead. I believe that the point of group work is to get us ready for the “real world” of working on teams. However, without a team lead or a PM or a manger or someone who drives the project, this is a very poor representation of what working on a team is actually like.
Threats:
The main threat to the course is the lack of clear expectations. I never know if my work for the week will be considered enough, because it is unclear what level of energy/effort is necessary due to the vague requirements. However, the TA feedback is extremely helpful and getting consistent feedback from the TAs mitigates this threat substantially. I greatly appreciate the TAs of this course and they should also be considered a “strength” of CS467.
Leave a Reply