This is the fourth and final blog post in a series for the Online Capstone Project – CS 467 – at Oregon State University Ecampus, Fall 2022.
My experience in this course has been incredibly positive. I got to choose every detail of my project, and everything worked out perfectly. I discovered the Gone Local Product Owners several months before the Online Capstone Project began, and we immediately shared a vision. I met my app development partner around the same time, and she turned out to be the best partner of any school project that I’ve ever been involved with. My experience has felt much more like a business venture than a class.
One of the best outcomes of this project is the huge confidence boost that I’ve experienced. Coming into this project, I was not familiar with much of the tech stack. I had a strong foundation to work from, but I hadn’t ever worked with these specific technologies: I had previously worked with React (web), but never with React Native (mobile); I had worked with Google’s Datastore via App Engine, but never with Google’s Firebase; I had never made an application with users whatsoever, but I figured that out; I had never made a location based app with maps either, and I figured that out too. After all that I have accomplished, with respect to my limited starting knowledge, I feel confident in my ability to bring ideas to life through software.
The most valuable skills that I gained from this project is how to think like an architect. I feel very lucky to have had this experience now, before I start my career as a Software Engineer with JPMorgan Chase in February 2023. When I first start my career, I probably won’t be in a position to think like an architect; I’ll be working on tickets, pushing incremental changes, getting acclimated to the corporate environment, etc. However, I will be able to work my way up the company ranks more quickly now that I have gained the eye of a software architect so soon.
There is still a lot to be done on this project, the Gone Local App, but I was never planning to finish everything during this course. For me, the purpose of this course was to lay the foundation of a scalable application that I can continue building out for months and (possibly) years to come.
