During this quarter I’ve learned a lot about how a job in this industry may look. There are now only a few weeks left and I feel like my team has accomplished a great app for the time we’ve put into it, and it makes me very hopeful that I could work on a team this great in the future. I’ve decided to do the SWOT analysis option for this blog as I think feedback is always important to longevity and staying on top of tech trends.
Strengths: This course has been a lot of fun and very exciting to go through. I think it is definitely one where you learn the most from just doing instead of passively learning. Working on a team would be one of the biggest strengths. Learning not only some new tech but how other people function and how you can work with them is a great skill to have. Not everyone will work the same as you or the same hours so some negotiation is necessary for a successful team and I think learning that in a controlled environment is great. Working in new environments is another strength as it pushes you out of your comfort zone and forces you to learn. This has been the first project that really does depend on your team and it has been an amazing time.
Weaknesses: One of the issues we’ve ran into as a team has been getting our testing suite to work with the project as we have it set up. I think this partially shows the weakness of this course as it can be really hard to find answers through google but we also have nothing like a senior dev to fall back on when we need help. Not to say the instructors aren’t helpful, but if we choose a tech stack they are unfamiliar with, this leaves us with little options on how to continue. Also, I can see another weakness being that team members often get demotivated and don’t work as much as they normally would at the start. I’m not saying this has happened to my team at all, but rather that this is a possibility that would be really unfortunate to cross.
Opportunities: I think a greater diversity of projects could be really interesting in a course like this. I noticed a lot of the projects were not web related but more geared toward physics engines or games. I can’t speak for everyone, but I have no idea if I would even like to work on a game as I have no experience in that field. If the previous courses were game focused or offered a different track to get to the this course, I could see how having these options would be great. I would definitely feel bad if I chose one of those projects and ended up not being interested at all because of the way the work is done, so this cuts down on my options a good bit when deciding where to go. Also I think another great addition on some projects would be to add a required tech stack that instructors and GTA’s are familiar with. This would lead to a much more dynamic work flow where you can do your work normally and then communicate with the professor or GTA as if they were a senior dev. This would be more similar to the real world and offer more chances to improve your communication on a larger team. I understand this could be too big of a burden on the GTA’s but maybe a middle ground could be achieved here.
Threats: I thought about this section for a long time and I really can’t see any way there could be a major issue with the way the course is laid out now. As discussed earlier, there are little things that could be adjusted but even if they kept the course as it is now, it would be an amazing learning experience. I’ve enjoyed every aspect of this course so far and have had a great time with my team. This has been a great way to end the journey we’ve been on for the last couple of years and get us ready for our new future careers.
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