Going Deeper Into Software Engineering
08 May 2023
Let’s continue with Software Engineering!
The start of another journey
Taking ICS 414 (Software Engineering II) right after ICS 314 (Software Engineering I) is definitely one of the best decisions that I made. During this past semester, I am able to see my personal growth and imagine myself working as a software engineer. In the beginning of the class, I thought that we are able to choose our own teammates to work together and choose a project, but things didn’t go as I thought it would. The reason why I have this thought is because in ICS 314, we got to choose who we want to work with, not want to work with, and projects that we want to work on. The reality is harsh because my professor, Mr. Moore mentioned that in the real world, we hardly have the chance to choose what we want to do. I think that this is true because in the future, if I get into a company, I will probably be assigned to a group of people that I wouldn’t know and given a project that we will need to do. I don’t think that the company will let me decide who I want to work with and the projects that I want to do.
Make sure to understand what your customers want
For the whole semester in ICS 414, our group only needs to work on a single project. Our group agreed for the project to be named “Room Directory”. If I am correct, most members in our group, including myself, went off track for about a month or so. When the customers talk about what they want and would like to have in the project, most members in the group focus on “would like to have” instead of the actual needs in the project. We focus on making a calendar to do the requests and reservations, but in the end, any collections, components, and pages pertaining to the requests and reservations are removed or deleted. When we present what we currently have during the second milestone, we realize that the calendar is not really needed because our customers mentioned that they might use google calendar. The calendar, request, and reservation that we were working on is only a part of “would like to have” but not a necessity. While most members were working on the “would like to have”, we still haven’t done much about the requirements or the “wants” for the project. I felt like we kind of wasted this whole month doing what’s not needed. I realized that we really should communicate with our customers and focus on the “wants” or “needs” for the projects. We should do the “would like to have” in the end when we have the extra time to do it. In addition, our group almost didn’t have enough time to complete the project.
Ask for help
The personal growth that I mentioned earlier is “asking for help”. I still have a habit of doing things on my own, even if I run into trouble, I try to solve it on my own. Now that I think about this habit, I feel like it’s a dumb act. It’s good to work on your own, but if you spend too much time on something without making a single process, then it’s not good. You can either give up or ask for help because if you don’t know something, your group mates might know it. While working on the project, I realized that if I got stuck on something for hours or days, I should have asked for help. I know that I wouldn’t want to give up on something that I am working on, so I should’ve asked for help. Getting stuck for hours and days without making a single process is basically wasting time. I learned to ask my teammates for help and they were nice enough to give me pointers on what I should do. With their help, I was able to make some progress on the project.
Future Plan
I plan to include the project, “Room Directory”, that I work on this past semester into my resume. In my short term goals, I know that I want to get an internship in software engineering, so I should include the “Room Directory” project into my resume. Most application deadlines for internships in the upcoming summer are already over. However, now that the “Room Directory” project is done, I can include this project in my resume and apply for next summer internships. In my future, I still plan to use any concepts that I have learned during the past semester in any interview, whether it’s for an internship or job position for future career.