Reflecting My Time in a Software Engineering Class
12 May 2020
At the beginning of the semester, I was very nervous to be taking a Software Engineering class. I had no idea what I was walking into since I’ve heard mixed reviews of the class. The one thing I was excited about doing in this class was developing a website. Since my newest project for my job is to re-design a website, I knew that I would be able to use what I learned in this class for my work. I’ve learned so much over the semester but the two topics that stood out to me the most were:
Agile Project Management
TEAMWORK! What makes a team a successful team or one that produces the best work in a given time period. Having a good team leader is a helpful start, but also having a great work strategy can take your team to the next level. There are different project management systems people can use, but the one that caught my attention was Agile Project Management. Agile Project Management is an iterative approach to planning and guiding projects progress. It breaks down the project into smaller pieces and makes it easier to respond to the issues on time. The cycle can consist of meeting, planning, designing, developing, testing, and evaluating. My team used this method as we worked on our final project. This method was very efficient in getting our site done in a short amount of time.
Coding Standards
Coding standards are important when you begin to work in a group and every person has their style of programming. The coding standard can maintain a consistent flow in the code for everyone to understand. Throughout the semester, I worked alongside a panel of judges for the VEX robotics competitions to look over the students’ programming process. After learning about coding standards and how important it is in programming, I made it a point to pass on the knowledge I was learning to the younger students. The concept of coding standards came in handy when I was working on my final project with a group of students. We all have different styles of coding, however, making sure we implemented the coding standards as we developed our website was very helpful when we ran into problems.
The Take-Away
If you were to ask me six months ago if I knew what Software Engineering was and if it was a career pathway I would be interested in, I would’ve said NO. Over the semester, I learned that software engineering would be a career path I would be interested in pursuing. I know that I will continue to use coding standards as I continue to develop new applications but the biggest takeaway from this course would be project management. Group work always scared me because I did not want to work with a group of people who do not have the same worth ethics as me. However, learning about agile project management and to see it work in real-time has given me the courage to not fear group work.