Week 13: 18 Nov – 24 Nov

What did you do this past week?

This past week I worked on some assignments that were due, met up with some people through WiCS, and attended a friendsgiving! It was an overall decent week. My SWE group met up this week to finish the visualizations for our website as well as refactor things that we needed to fix from the previous phase. There are just a few small things to complete before we will push our final commit! I also actually understood what I was doing in my Algorithms homework this week (which is a first). Lastly, I finished my Networks lab pretty early on in the week instead of hours before which was also a success in my book.

What’s in your way?

I didn’t realize how close we were to the end of the semester until pretty recently and it’s catching up to me; there are a lot of extra credit assignments I need to work on so that I can achieve decent grades in all of my courses. I feel that I definitely didn’t prioritize my classes and studying this semester as much as I did during my previous semesters and it definitely reflected in my grades. However, I feel that I got what I put into my courses and at this point in the semester, I’m fairly satisfied. I just need to be able to power through these last few weeks.

What will you do next week?

Next week I will attend my Monday and Tuesday classes and go home Tuesday evening for Thanksgiving break. I will also be working on several extra credit assignments over break as well as hopefully get a head start on studying for my exams in my courses.

What was your experience of singletons and reflection?

The lectures over singletons went very in-depth, more than I expected them to. Up until now I don’t recall ever sitting in a lecture taught officially taught singletons as the topic of the day so engaging with them more officially was very informative. Furthermore, I learned more about the small but impactful semantics as well as the purposes of why one would choose to use singletons so learning that was pretty interesting as well.

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

I recently read this article inquiring if Austin was the best city in America. It analyzed how the tech boom in the city has contributed to the quality (and also cost) of living rising as well as identifying how living here is much more affordable than many other places with similar environments and jobs (basically calling out Silicon Valley). In fact, Austin is nicknamed “Silicon Hills” to reflect the high concentration of tech companies with offices or headquarters here. Furthermore, they emphasized how Austin is one of the top areas for venture capital investment and has a very big startup culture. I’ve noticed that the big reason why Austin is one of the fastest growing cities in America and why it continuously is at the top of all these kind of “best cities” lists is due to the influx of tech. It’s interesting to read about and see especially from our perspectives as individuals in this field and in this city. As one who has lived in Austin for the past 9 years, it’s fascinating to see how Austin has evolved over the years.