“The wise man is one who knows what he does not know.”
Lao Tzu
Well, here it is; we’re officially nearing the end of an amazing term. I remember Professor Hedaoo saying many students claim this is their favorite course, and I understand now why that would be the case. It’s been quite a wild experience being turned loose on a software project and just having to figure things out; I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. When I reflect on my successes in this course, two things come to mind. Firstly, client management. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work with an external company, and it’s been a rewarding journey. I often hear that the hardest part of being a software engineer is translating client requirements into software, but it’s actually been one of my favorites (I’m sure it’s client-dependent, Alan is awesome!) So much of my experience at OSU has involved clearly defined assignment specifications, so I haven’t had the opportunity to really take the driver’s seat; it’s been neat, to say the least! Side note: I know I keep referring to my project mentor as a “client”, but I really think that description fits better. Alan owns the business for which we were building the website, and he is not technical at all, so he wasn’t able to be too hands-on as a mentor. It did feel more like an internship or consulting gig than a school project, which I actually preferred.
Secondly, while overall, there are always areas for improvement, I believe both my partner and I did a good job of staying on top of communication with the client and were able to translate some rather vague requirements from a non-technical person into an end product they are happy with, so I consider our project a success! I’m also proud of myself for being able to navigate the ambiguity of the implementation of my work. When we started the project, I encountered a number of roadblocks for the first few weeks while, at Alan’s direction, I was trying to follow in the footsteps of the previous student. The previous approach had a steep learning curve (like trying to learn how to build photorealistic whole-house model in Blender in two weeks as a complete beginner!), was difficult to scale, and required complex software to render (not to mention the resources it consumed once you did!). I proposed a different solution to Alan and met with him to show a demo. While initially reluctant, he came around and is thrilled with the end product, which is music to my ears!
For a SWOT analysis, here are my thoughts:
Strengths: The guardrails are off, and we’re just let loose with this class – I love that! I’ve learned a lot from having the opportunity to make mistakes and figure things out. That being said, while we did have independence, I felt like the instructional staff was still checking in and making their presence known; the balance was just right, in my opinion. Also, a big positive in my book is that we have some projects with external companies.
Weaknesses/Opportunities: I’m grouping these two together as weaknesses could also be considered opportunities for improvement. The main thing for me is that I would like to see more projects with external companies that could lead to job offers after the program. I have a hunch that the few external projects were very competitive, as many OSU post-bacc students can’t get internships due to life obligations outside the program, so it would be great to have more of those.
Threats: The only thing I can think of is having a bad project mentor or group. Look, Alan was fantastic and I certainly wouldn’t consider him a bad mentor, but he isn’t technical, so we had to figure out a lot of things ourselves. I know this is a fine line because you want students to have the experience of doing that exploratory work. However, I think it could have been helpful for instructional staff to meet with Alan to properly scope the project and set realistic expectations of what students could complete in a semester, then leave it up to the students to decide how to implement it. I was also lucky that I had a great teammate in Matt. This would be a tough class if you didn’t have group members that were engaged, invested, and delivering consistently good work.
Overall though, I’ve had fun. Looking forward to wrapping up these last few weeks and getting out there into the world of engineering.
Cheers!
-Oscar
