New Hire Request

In my role, I am one of the first people notified by Human Resources that a new hire is joining the company. It presents more work for me as I need to create their IT accounts and setup their computer. However, for some reason, this is one of the parts I enjoy doing for the following reasons:

1. I get to meet someone new and overly enthusiastic about the company, whether it is genuine or not.
2. Setting up a custom laptop and ordering peripherals is almost as exciting as if I was the one receiving these items myself.
3. It achieves a different sense of accomplishment than an IT issue request.

One thing that stood out to me amongst these new hires is there are two main types of people – leaders and followers. While leaders were typically seen in executive roles, I saw people of leadership quality throughout all levels of the heirarchy. The leaders were the ones who were ready to get started in every aspect of the company and would ask many questions from easy to difficult. The followers took a more conventional approach and asked questions if it was required. While there are more nuances, the difference in communication was a key distinguishing factor on who is a leader or follower. Communication is the heart of a functioning society and leaders influence that narrative.

Capstone Update

Communication is crucial in the project planning phase. It is easy to make assumptions when not all pieces are presently understood. I appreciated that my group was forward about their capabilities. My team will all be working on something that is novel in some fashion. That is exciting but at the same time intimidating as there is a chance our project could shift. I experienced this myself when working on the wireframes. I changed them multiple times as I asked clarifying questions or understood the project in a new way based on how the discussion was flowing. Below are some examples of wireframes I made on the web portal.

As explained last week, my team is working on the Citizen Science App for Kids. Our team decided to name our project Science Sleuths. This week, I will be working on the frontend of the web admin portal. My goal is to create an interface for teachers to create and view science projects they have created for their classroom. To better conceptualize this, I attempted to make my wireframes as high fidelity as I reasonably could do in the scope of one week. I hope that having a detailed blueprint will aid in the implementation phase. The intended frontend framework to be used will be React. I chose React as I have made some small projects in it and want to try it on a larger scale project.

Getting Started

The beginning of this project feels like starting a new job. There are uncertainties in the beginning and norms have not been formed yet. Getting started can look like a mountain that has not yet been explored. What has helped me was a message I have always remembered from my English professor at community college many years ago. We were talking about essays, introductions, and conclusions. He looked at the class and said something along the lines of, “Just write something down. It does not have to be in order. It does not even have to be the introduction. Write the introduction and conclusion last. Delete what is not necessary.” I do not remember honestly what essays I wrote for that class but I remember that. Just do what makes sense in the beginning and the rest will follow. It has made starting a lot less difficult for me.