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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. |
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Flow Control
The past few weeks have been hectic for those of us taking Software Foundations as we try to avoid getting "Railed" by Rails and finish our personal projects on time in addition to finishing our group project on time (if it means anything, we did get a two day extension on personal projects -- for those of us working full time, this really means an 8 hour extension). The personal project is a project to redesign or design a website you are passionate about, it is due this Tuesday.
I am not sure how many of the students were as stressed out about this personal project as I was -- talking to people in class and out, it seemed like many were more or less in the same position. The first week and a half of the project, I kind of slacked off and spent a week playing Metal Gear Solid 4 beating Laughing Octopus and Ravaging Raven (yes!) -- the XP software methodology factors in a week of "slack" in your project time line -- I just decided to be proactive and take mine early, which didn't really work out for me and really regretted it later.
We were given 3 weeks to do the personal project. The last 1.5 weeks I have been "pushing stone" and spending time to learn Ruby on Rails and pump out a personal project. There have been sweat, tears, and blood (figuratively). The days have been 6:30am, out the bed, 7:15am at work till 5:00pm or 6:00pm, grab a quick dinner, rest a bit and work on the project till near 2:00am. On the nights in which I stayed up to the crack of dawn and spent time debugging stack traces from my project, I'd think back to that week of slack and think that Laughing Octopus really got the last laugh.
I'd spend lunch hours at my desk, working or reading for school -- actually, sitting at my desk at my lunch hour is nothing new, although I would typically browse slickdeals.net or the few blogs that I read.
Nevertheless, the journey thus far has been quite amazing (my personal project is nearly done, just need to finish the testing tasks). I am learning to adjust to the flow of work and school and space out the load. Sometimes during those long days and nights, I stayed up late because I had to finish or debug a feature -- other nights, I didn't want to go to bed because I was too excited about features in the project. Though there are "rumors" about those who work in software -- environments void of light and lunch as microwaveable hot pockets (or cup of noodles), I believe there are positives, and I believe that those feelings are what every software developer yearns for : finding that bug that totally confuses you, coding some really great algorithm or idea and seeing it pan out, etc...
I'd also like to comment that the students (and quality of them) are quite amazing. It doesn't feel totally like a school; it feels more like a group. I don't feel competition as much as I feel empowerment and encouragement from fellow students -- useful information and knowledge is exchanged freely without hesitation -- very different from my undergrad. Because of this, I'm really looking forward to semesters to come.
posted by Anthony Tang @ 3:05 PM
2 comments
Orientation 2009
Hi, I'm Anthony, and I just started at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley as a part-time MS Software Engineering student! I'm in the Technical track of this two-year program, and can't believe the semester has officially started! After finally adjusting to life as a working - college student (again). The days have been long, and the nights have been even longer. I often wonder if I still have what it takes to "carry that weight" of school, work, and family; and I guess I have yet to find out. I think I finally can make time to write up this blog.
As a part time student, I only take one class at a time (in 7 week intervals), the semester, it's Software Foundations. On my first day of class, I was pretty surprised at the setup -- the video cameras and remote campus setup was quite amazing. There is even a push-to-talk microphone on the desk, and if you press it, the video camera in the room would adjust, zoom in, and focus to your position; I thought this was quite neat. Whether or not this really helps a person learn or not, I am not sure (I guess having a video camera in the room discourages sleeping); however it hits home something that I felt from Carnegie Mellon from the start, that they really aim to inspire and innovate.
I saw and felt this pretty clear in the three day orientation we had before classes, three days to meet and get to know your future professors, classmates, and also other faculty.
The three day orientation was quite interesting (though I would have to admit that by the end of every orientation day, I was dead tired). I think everyone likes to talk about the LEGO castle building activity (and why not?), but I thought the public speaking 101 was the most interesting activity done. The task was simple : to take a childrens book and read it to a particular audience with a given time constraint. I found the time to talk to faculty and professors on a person to person (rather than student to teacher) level quite refreshing. It made me feel like Carnegie Mellon was a school I wanted to be a part of, rather than just attend.
That's all I have to say now. With the full swing of the semester about to start, let's hope I have time in between school, work, and family to write on this blog. Thanks for reading!
posted by Anthony Tang @ 3:14 PM
1 comments
