Week 7: 7 Oct – 13 Oct

What did you do this past week?

This past week I had somewhat of a breather week. I caught up on some of the coursework I missed due to Grace Hopper and finished some assignments in my other courses. I also had a few interviews that could have gone better (due to me not studying for them and instead opting to relax) but I don’t regret taking a break on interview prepping as it is one of the main stress triggers for me. My SWE group started some parts of phase 2 though we also spent a few days unwinding and recovering from our hectic experience with the previous phase and focusing on our personal commitments and deadlines.

What’s in your way?

The main thing in my way would just be the heavy workload of phase 2. There are many tools and stacks we are required to use that my group members and I are all unfamiliar with but I have faith that we will all work well together in picking up the puzzle pieces to complete this part of the project. I also spend a lot of unnecessary time doing recruiting activities. I hope to finish my recruiting soon and focus my complete and undivided attention on my coursework.

What will you do next week?

Next week my SWE group will spend a lot of time working on this part of the project. I will also begin studying for the upcoming SWE exam on Thursday by looking over all of the material we’ve covered in lectures so far.

What was your experience of CATME’s peer review?

I personally didn’t think the user experience of the peer review was very intuitive. It took time to wrap my head around the way that CATME wanted to input our feedback. However, I think it’s ultimately a beneficial thing to have a peer review so we can provide feedback to our fellow group members. It was also interesting to read the feedback my group members wrote as well!

What was your experience of peer-instruction quizzes?

I thought that they promoted collaboration and discussions between students within an environment where everyone would be benefiting from the interactions. However, the grading is definitely something to get used to as it depends on the class working together.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

If you have a MacBook or a Macintosh, be wary before upgrading to Catalina macOS, the most recent macOS update/release. They stopped supporting 32-bit apps and thus if you still have potentially older versions of applications, they will no longer run. Thus, many apps are now incompatible until the developers of the application adapt them to fit the new OS.