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MS in Software Engineering, Technical Track Blog
 | Rahul is a full-time MS Software Engineering, Technical Track student. He loves traveling, trekking, swimming and is a complete movie buff. |
 | Anthony is a 2nd year part time student in the MS Software Engineering, Technical track program and works at OSIsoft as a Software Engineer. He loves spending time with his family, hiking, biking, gardening, cooking, and sometimes photography. |
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Suma is an alumna of the MS Software Engineering, Technical Track program. A Mechanical Engineering undergrad, she loves writing and is passionate about music, shopping and dogs. |
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Minh is a Software Design Engineer at Microsoft and alumnus of the MS Software Engineering program. He is also a Vietnamese community activist, a cat-lover and passionate fan of film music. |
 | Nick is a Software Engineer at Google and a first-year grad student at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley. He loves hiking, gaming, and both really extremely good and extremely bad movies. |
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Class Schedule and Long-Distance Learning
It’s always hard to explain to my friends what Carnegie Mellon West is and what it is not. Whenever my friends and co-workers ask simple questions such as “How many classes are you taking this semester?” or “When are your classes?,” I always take a deep breath and mentally prepare myself to go through the same routine of providing answers that only bring forth further questions.
Well, how DO I answer those types of questions?
A) “I don’t have any classes”
B) “I only have one class per semester”
C) “My teammates, faculty and I make up our own class schedule”
D) “My class meets Sunday night at 11pm”
E) “Yes, I understand this is New York City, but I still have class later this afternoon”
“I don’t have any classes.”
It’s true. If you are thinking of classes as “regularly-scheduled sessions on campus that I need to attend every week only to powernap through them,” then no, I don’t have any classes. As mentioned before in my blog, the majority of my weekly schedule consists of working either individually or in a team to produce deliverables—whether it is a source code, documents or presentations. How do I learn then? Well, just like in real-life, I am expected to learn the materials through whatever media work best for me. Carnegie Mellon West provides a number of resources for the students - certainly the number one resource comes in the form of our professors, who will guide discussions, or lead teams toward finding their own answer. In many cases, the resource can be the assigned reading in books, or individual web research. The last resource is your classmates – the fact that you are teamed up with people with varying professional experiences means that you have a lot to learn from each other. The bottom line is that you should understand the material to deliver the products. How you learn that material is entirely up to you.
However, we do have optional “bootcamps” every month or so. These are 1-2 hour classroom-style sessions where either a faculty member or an outside industry expert is invited on campus to delve into particular topic in much further detail. Examples of past sessions are Hibernate, JUnit, UML, CMMI, and even technical writing.
“I only have one class per semester.”
It’s true. If you are thinking of the schedule of classes that appear on my grade report, I only have a single 12-unit class per semester. Last semester was “Foundations of Software Engineering;” this semester, it’s “Requirements Engineering.” While we split up the 16-week class into two 8-week classes, it really is only one class.
“My teammates, faculty and I make up our own class schedule.”
It’s true. We make up our own schedule. Since a team typically consists of 4-6 students who work full-time, and faculty members who meet independently with all their students, in addition to conducting their own research, scheduling meeting times is left entirely to us. At the beginning of each semester, the team negotiates a weekly meeting time between ourselves and the professors teaching the course (typically we will have to schedule with 2-3 different faculty members, who play the roles of team advisor, VP of Engineering, and optionally the VP of Marketing. Some teams meet once each weekend and do the rest through online collaboration, other teams meet four times a week in the evenings to leave the weekend open; the majority do a combination of both. It really depends on the team dynamics, preferences, and the current week’s work-load.
“My class meets Sunday night at 11P.M.”
It’s true. Given that the school provides us with a Microsoft LiveMeeting for each team, we often find ourselves using this tool to collaborate online at the oddest hours. Last semester, one of my team members was “on vacation” in India and called in during his wee early hours and our late evenings.
“Yes, I understand this is New York City, but I still have class later this afternoon.”
Since our cohort consists of 30% remote students, the classes are designed for long-distance learning. While I very much prefer to meet on campus to fully appreciate the advantages of in-person meetings, I appreciate the flexibility to be out of town and not missing meetings. Whether I find myself on business trips to Seattle, personal trips to New York, or family-visits to Orange County, I can still participate in meetings through the use of conference call bridges and LiveMeeting. All you really need is an internet connection and a fully-charged cell phone. One time, I was on a cell phone for four hours at a McDonald’s in Brooklyn. While it was certainly not a pleasurable experience, I valued the fact that, as Thomas Friedman would say, “the world is flat.”
As you can see, some simple questions require complicated answers. Hopefully, some of my co-workers and friends would have read this blog entry the next time they ask me questions about my classes, to save me from a long-winded explanation.
Next time: Requirements Engineering or "What do you mean, there's more to life than coding?"
posted by Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley @ 4:52 PM
Hi,
I've read your blog @ CMU west website. I have couple of questions about this school and was wondering if I can have ur email address?
Thanks,
Hi Sinad,
You're welcome to email me at sylvia.leong@west.cmu.edu, I'll be glad to answer any questions you have about the program!
Sylvia Leong
Director of Admissions
Sinad,
Sure thing. My personal email is nguyentriminh@yahoo.com
Cheers,
Minh.