Week 4 has been busy! I have gotten work done a lot later than I would have liked.
Part 1: Education Goals
My educational goals would be to expand my knowledge about Javascript. The most tangible project to put this in practice would be to create a simple interactable website, possibly using React as a frontend. One of my ideas for a capstone project would be to create a website for a tabletop game I am developing, so the practice would be great for it.
The first step would be to learn about networking -- CST311: Intro to Computer Networking and CST336: Internet Programming would be where I hone these skills. Before these classes, I would like to create a single-task web app as a practice. It would have a starting list of about 20 items, and allow the user to arrange them into 6 specific item slots, like a digital pin board. Then, once I am in these classes, I will look back at this project and see what I can do differently or what I have learned since then.
My web development goals are outlined above. For
software development, I am interested in using the Godot engine as a
starting point for a basic program. This program would be to perform a
similar function to the web app stated above, but rewritten in this
software to be portable and not need Internet access to function.
Part 2: Career Goals
My career goal would be to work as either a web developer or software engineer for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). In order to get there, I need to complete CS Online with a good GPA, and apply for an internship as I am taking the courses. If I am able to get in touch with any faculty in MBARI, that would be a big plus as well.
Part 3: ETS Computer Science Test
After reading this test and taking it currently, I think I will be confident enough to get at least an A or at least 90% on this test in 18 months. I am not too familiar with processing times in algorithms yet, and I am particularly bad with sorting trees. With the future CS Online curriculum, I believe I can understand these questions better and have more confidence in answering them correctly.
Part 4: Recap
Our group met on Saturday at noon to discuss homework and complete the group collaboration assignment. In this assignment, we felt as though we aren't as good in a few skills like planning and proofreading, though the other group member believes otherwise. I believed that proofreading my own work isn't very thorough, though it is useful for others. My groupmate believed that they have troubles with planning, but I believed that they are good at managing their time by getting homework done early. I believe we are both self-critical in this regard.
While doing research for my ethics essay, I was surprised to see how many studies have been conducted already for AI and mental health therapy.
Isopod update: I decided to separate out some orange springtails into a new bin, because their current one is being overrun by white springtails. I'm hoping they like coco coir since that's what I had on hand at the moment.
The panda kings are hidden away, I probably won't be seeing them for a while. They tend to burrow and remain hidden until their population gets bigger.
Hello Ysabelle, I think your goals are really clear and creative. It’s so cool that you’re already coming up with ideas and building things on your own. It’s awesome that you’re thinking ahead and planning to improve your project after taking those classes. MBARI is a great goal, and your steps to get there make a lot of sense. Keep going! I think you’re doing great.
ReplyDeleteYour educational goals are very specific and sound achievable. Working on a project is a great way to strengthen your programming skills, and you will continue to get better the more projects you work on. I like how you pick specific classes you think will help with your educational goals and I think CST311 and CST336 will help you achieve your goals as web development is a pretty popular field.
ReplyDeleteHey there!
ReplyDeleteYour education goals sound awesome. Web development, and front end engineering is such a broad discipline with lots of opportunities to get in and build and learn. It also has a small feedback loop, which means you can really see your work "come to life" quite quickly.
When building a single page app or focused web application, it can be easy to fall into the trap of trying to dive head first into too many topics at once. With that said I would try to focus on frontend to start. Using something like Heroku to get your page hosted and automatically deployed from a Github repo can help get something off the ground immensely! For databases, don't worry about the web service instead see if you can use something like Firebase to get off the ground quickly.
The more problem spaces you can eliminate with commoditized services, the more you can focus on the thing you really want to learn. As always with Frontend, understanding basic HTML and CSS first is great -- since most frameworks end up compiling HTML and are subject to normal DOM behavior.
Good luck with the journey!