CSUMB Learning Journal

Week 8 is a short week and also the last week of CST300. I’m glad it’s over and that I can move on to the next course. This week I completed the post-test for OLI. I didn’t learn anything from it because it was just a rehash of some of the multiple choice questions from previous modules. We finished and turned in our final video project and I’d say it went pretty well. Let’s move on to reviewing other team’s videos. First we have Stack Otterflow’s video. They only have a professional video uploaded right now so I’m only going over that one. Their video makes ours look bad. That’s the easiest way to put it. When I first watched their video about Autonomous Vehicles I thought that we missed some instructions and did ours wrong because of the sheer difference in quality and presentation. They do an excellent job at presenting and covering their topic as well as every other metric that they could be graded on. I think that this team went above and beyond the expectations set for this ass...

  Week 7! Week 8 is a short week so we're almost done with CST300. This has been a pretty great class overall. It didn’t make me like writing more than I did before and the ethics essay was a chore to write, but I feel pretty good about the class. Before the ethics essay, video project, and extra credit scores I’m sitting at a 96% (A+) so I’m fairly confident that I’ve achieved my first milestone to getting an A in every class in this program. I would have a 99% score if I bothered to get a grade corrected from early on but I don’t really care. I have no idea how other people performed in this class and hope this isn’t bragging too much, but I doubt anybody will bother reading this anyway. Speaking of not knowing what other people are doing, the Final Research Video Project! I’m very curious about how other groups are handling this project and would’ve really appreciated an example video from a previous class to show us what level of quality we’re supposed to aim for. As for my gro...

Week 6 comes to a close and my ethics argument essay is around halfway complete. I’ve been having a little trouble figuring out how to word everything in it, but I’m confident that I’ll complete it on time and that it will be good quality. This is in contrast to my previous essay about a career pathway that I’d had practically 100% complete by the time I had to submit a rough draft. I think the difference here is that I’m not passionate about ethics and the entire essay is basically about ethics. In other news, the rest of this week’s activities were somewhat notable. I created a shell for my ILP Portfolio website and wrote a cover letter and resume. We also submitted our essay drafts for team peer review. This week’s OLI modules were about active listening and assertion messages. I find doing these modules to be a bit silly since most of these communication strategies feel like common sense to me, but unfortunately I doubt most people would agree with me. In the lectures this week we ...

Week 5 is coming to a close! This week looks like it has a deceptively lighter workload than previous weeks if you forget that you should be working hard on your ethics argument essay. This week was mostly about developing the essay and planning for the future. I completed Modules 6 and 7 of OLI this week. Module 6 was about conflict recognition and Module 7 was about choosing approaches to conflict strategies. I have three ideas for my capstone project. The first one could be some sort of software tool that I could realistically use often and that would solve some sort of issue that I’ve faced while using my computer. Maybe some sort of process automation or file conversion software? I also like the idea of making a game that I would like to play. I also like the idea of developing software that can help automate the installation and management of an operating system that can be used at scale. I own multiple computers and almost all of my friends own custom built desktops that I’ve h...

This week began a little slower than Week 3 since I’ve been allowed to relax after turning in my Industry Analysis essay and seeing my grade for it. That feeling didn’t last because I already had to create an outline for our second and more serious essay that’s worth double the points of the previous one. This course moves really fast and I appreciate the time saved compared to taking normal semester length classes. Let’s get to what I’m required to talk about! I don’t think my educational goals are too ambitious for this program. I’d like to complete every course with at least a grade of 90% or higher. I’ll achieve that by completing all of my assignments on time and by doing any and all available extra credit. I would like to attain a feeling of pride and accomplishment. Those grades would be nice for my overall GPA too since it’s suffered a few times from certain unplanned life events taking priority over some classes at my previous schools. My career goals aren’t especially clear ...

Week 3 is coming to a close. I spent this week studying the lecture material and finalizing my Industry Analysis essay. The short video on how to format an APA reference page was especially helpful for me fixing my reference page as the slides detailing reference pages in the previous unit were not entirely clear. One unfortunate part of the essay requirements was that the limit of 12 references forced me to omit some information that I believed was important to my topic. In Module 3 of OLI I learned about the different work styles that people can have. I had never before considered that some people are internal or external processors when it comes to coming up with ideas. I also learned about different work styles and conflict styles that team members could have. The main subject of this week was about ethics in the field of Computer Science. I have come to dislike studying ethics because I’ve already had to do so many times before throughout my college education, but I under...

     Week 2 is coming to an end and it feels like the course is running at a much faster pace than the introductory first week. It can be really easy to fall behind already if you don’t pay attention and allocate time to know what your workload looks like for the week and plan accordingly. It felt a little crazy having to write out the rough draft for the Industry Analysis paper already. In regard to that assignment I think that my work was a little messy and I overused citations, but that’s why we have peer reviews to give valuable feedback and suggest how I can make improvements. I learned a lot about the subject company while developing the paper and I think it’s easy to see how much research I did.      Now let’s get on to summarizing what I viewed for the Module 2 Lecture. I watched ‘The Future Is Faster Than You Think’ video with Peter Diamandis’ lecture on why he thinks technology is going to rapidly develop and expand. The video is from 2018 and he ...

Week 1 is coming to a close and I’m getting a grasp on how this course is going to be. I had a bit of a rough start because I got sick at a New Years Eve party and was bedridden for most of the week, so that’s why I’m a little late to upload this post. I learned some more about team dynamics from Module 1 in OLI. This week was exciting getting to know the contents of the course and the instructing staff in charge of it. I look forward to the rest of this program!