Blog Entry #9 CS 373: Abdul-Ghaffar Balogun
What did you do this past week?
This past week was pretty stressful in the beginning. I was juggling finishing my last minute Algorithms assignment and working on the SWE project. I was struggling to balance my time efficiently, so I was taken a little by storm with those assignments. However, things turned around towards the end of the week and there was much less work for me. I then decided to give a little time to myself to just relax!
What’s in your way?
I think what’s in my way is the number of tools I have to familiarize myself with. This next phase has a lot of requirements, which could be a little daunting, so I am trying to work to ensure myself and my team are staying on top of our work.
It’s a little nerving-wracking to start tackling something you’ve never really done before.
What will you do next week?
Next week I want to spend my time being productive with respect to staying on top of my classes. I have an exam coming up, so I want to ensure I spend my time studying for my exam and catching up on my work.
In addition, I want to get started on the next phase of the project, so that would entail watching videos and a lot of google searches!
4. If you read it, what did you think of Ethical CS?
The article was interesting. I liked how it discusses the important aspect of innovation: ethics. Often times, we find ourselves so engulfed in the revolutionary idea of something that we tend to overlook its possible repercussions. The slides brought to light some of the intricacies and important concepts related to ethics. I was also interested in how it discussed some examples for us to think about as well as give us some real-world applications. For example, they talked about the challenger explosion and why that caused such an uproar in the realm of ethics. I thought it was interesting how they disregarded the overwhelming risk of human lives as well as the absorbent amount of money they spent on the project. The paper shows us why ethics should be the foundation of any innovation.
5. What was your experience of functions, lambdas, and decorators? (this question will vary, week to week)
I had some trouble following some of the new material. I am assuming it’s because a lot of these topics are new to me, we have reached the place where there is a larger disconnect between Java and Python. I think I am going to spend a little more time going over last week’s material to ensure I don’t fall behind with what I should know.
6. What made you happy this week?
What made me happy was the time I was able to give back to myself. I think it’s super important to remember self-care in the midst of stress, and be less hard on yourself sometimes.
7. What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
There are multiple GitHub repositories with lists of companies to apply for. It makes it an easy hub to find companies that interest you as well as apply to them. It’s nice to have that resource in one place and it could be very useful instead of seeking out these openings yourself. In addition, it gives you more insight into what you already applied to and who to expect to hear back from.
