Building Bridges in Code: A Journey Through Software Engineering and Design

WEEK 10 - Midterm Blow Week 10 feels like a turning point in my academic journey, really forcing me to reflect on my commitment to the goals I have set for myself over the years. The midterm project presentation really tested the spirit of our perseverance and adaptability. Despite all this effort, we faced several unexpected challenges that led to our failure to meet the 70% requirement for the project. The shortfall was dejecting since we were close to doing what we'd been working so hard at. Well, though it was frustrating in many ways, I took an important lesson from this experience: that of adjusting quickly and effectively to something that does not come out as planned. I realized that it is not just pushing through but also learning to pivot and adjust to new challenges. If we want to do well for the third term, then it should mean approaching the project with a fresh mindset and having better processes. It means embracing change even though it is uncomfortable and ready to ...

 WEEK 9 - Coping with Unexpected Challenges During Exams The night before the exam I was struck by a migraine that did not allow me to review all the modules as deeply as I would have liked. Wanting to make progress and use the rest of my day in trying to mitigate the pain, I was only able to concentrate on lessons 1 and 2. This limited my ability to cover what I wanted, so I did not feel prepared. The questions for the exam were mixed: there were several that seemed very familiar, probably because I had concentrated on preparation for my last quiz, and others that looked considerably more complicated and required some deeper analysis and critical thinking. This study had three questions with which I actually had trouble-they happened to catch me off guard-and even after repeated attempts to work through, I just could not find the proper answers. This was frustrating, and even with the help of repeatedly reading the material I did not come out with the feeling that I understoo...

 WEEK 8 - Rainy Days and Mental Blockades: How I Survived a Quiz and Lived to Code Another Day Indeed, the rain only made traffic more congested speeding toward a late quiz. My prep did not always make the anxiety go away, and I could not concentrate on the test because of it. Deadlines gave a nightmare, the topics were so hard that even with my questions and the solution I could not reach the answers. At the same time, I was not able to enumerate or identify the proper ones, but then the sky suddenly got cleared after I had remembered that game tree concept. I, after the quiz, was relaxed with classmates, still thinking about my overall performance. Soon comes October 1, 2024 our second quiz was around the corner. Our instructor shifted the questions to being more superficial in nature which was received at the moment with great pleasure on our end. I had studied enough well and was able to see how hard it was when I was taking the quiz, but the birds flew, and all this tensi...

WEEK 7 - Crafting an App Before Coffee Runs Out! We had an extremely intense and hectic week of coding, designing, and problem solving. However, our professor didn't meet us in class but assigned us the crucial task of preparing our application for testing. What was our goal? To go on the offensive with the development process, achieve 70% completion, and best be set up for a possible midterm review. At the moment, our whole team is developing together while the finishing touches are put on the design and bugs are resolved from both the front-end and back-end. On a daily basis, we continue to tweak the user interface designs, add functionality and behavior, also helping implement the data flow. Of course, it is a real test of our wits but there is definitely a sense of fulfillment in observing our intense labor bear fruit in segments. As for me, I have been handling a variety of tasks one of which is managing the database. Focusing on the application and database layer has made it ...

WEEK 6 - QUALITY TIME 😜 The lecture hall was filled with excitement and energy as our instructor introduced the day's mission, facing the networks of software testing, automation, quality assurance, and the indispensable John Brookes' user acceptance method. This wasn't a routine lesson, it was a battle cry, a trip into the specifics of slimming down software from a good a functional state to an errorless state. We made our debut with the riddles of the black and white box which were like two sorcerers with special spells both of which were critical. For controlling black box tests, code testers are trying to mimic the end-users and therefore, they are indirectly trying to find errors. The black box testing, for example, seemed like a voyage to another planet where we had to experiment with the software like any outsider, who discovers hidden issues by pressing buttons, opening doors, and so on. The presentation of white box testing, however, served us a tour inside the en...