Week Fourteen

            This is the fourteenth week of class as well as the last required post for this blog. With only one week left all that remains is to finish presentations and a test, but this means that most aspects of the class are concluded, because other than organizing the presentation there is no more group work, no more programming, pair programming or standard programming, and no more lessons from Professor Downing or any more guest speakers. Speaking of guest speakers, we had our final one this week, whom discussed start-ups and of the need for programmers as well as the possibility of future internships. Overall it was about as informative as the others, in that it showed how Professor Downing wants his students to be successful so he wishes to show of the many possible job avenues available to those with computer science experience, by having companies come in to discuss just that as well as the importance of internships, which just reinforces what Professor Downing already repeated tells us. So he seems very fond of the brute force, beat the idea into his students’ heads approach to get his point across, which is not necessarily a bad approach, but it can be a bit heavy handed at times because typically those who would listen already know or realize this after the first time and those who resist the idea typically will continue to resist the idea regardless of how many times the professor tries to convey the importance of these ideas to succeed in the job market, computer science or otherwise.

            The only other think of note that occurred this week was that the professor talked about the final test and what types of things would be on it, as well as some example problems. This is much appreciative, because it helps with studying for the final test. Oh and once again, the professor is recommending group studying as the best means to study. This is a fair point, but as with most forms of learning and studying, everyone has their own style of studying so for some group studying does not help and for some it does. Hopefully by the end of the class most have a good idea of what works best for them.

Week Thirteenth

            This marks the end of the thirteenth week of class, which means only two more weeks remain before both the final test and the end of the course. This week shed a lot of light on the character of the class and Professor Downing. The normal stuff occurred of working on databases and learning about SQL. However, we had a reading this week which was specifically about women in the computer science industry and how they are treated and how they are looked down upon if they do not meet so arbitrarily high standards to which males are not put to in the same manner. This type of social commentary is much appreciated because as opposed to ignoring the inequality of treatment of standing women face in the industry, he introduced it face on and even recommended a talk which would further discuss the issue, granted there was an irony in the talk he recommended, because it was the same talk the reading said was an incomplete talk of the issue.

            This week was also the week that the end of the project was due, which of course had its own stresses. However, Professor Downing kept a close eye on the posts and discussions of the students and due to the difficulty some groups were experiencing, he allowed them to have an extension on the assignment. And as a reward and to give his students a rest after completing the final project, he gave the class a day off. These acts show how much attention he pays to his students and how much he cares about both their academic states and their mental states, considering the project was very mentally fatiguing with all the attempts to try to organize the groups as a whole (something which never was fully accomplished due to some groups trying to do their own thing that they felt would make their lives easier at the expense of the other groups). So this gives a good idea on how he views his students and how much he cares about their education and their health, both good qualities for a professor.

Week 12

This is the twelfth week of class, thus only three weeks are left. The class this week went back to teach about SQL, which is good considering that seems appropriate for a database course as opposed to all the Python coding part, which has not to be fully explained to the relevance to the course since he has mentioned how this is not a Python course and has yet to tie it back to the database aspect of the course. There was also another guest speaker this week, who talked about alternatives to the relational database of SQL, known as NoSQL. Though there were many types as opposed to a single one, it is just that the overall idea is called NoSQL to categorize them. Anyways the project has reached the point where now the entire class has to organize, and I must say that it is going about as well as can be expected, which is slow, painfully, and without a clue whether it will all get completed in time for the due date Thursday. That is to be expected of a class of 48; because it is hard enough organizing a single group of six let alone eight, when each group is honestly only concerned about taking care of themselves and trying to manipulate the situation to best fit their specific group. There is no real incentive to work together. And then there is the issue of the presentation aspect of the project, where it is up to the other groups to grade each other. The issue with this is only the possibility of people being jerks to one another for any possible reason. Presumably people will not do so, but there is always a possibility of this idea backfiring if enough animosity builds up between any groups or individuals. Granted on the other hand there is also the possibility of groups going the easy route of simply giving everyone A’s to avoid actually doing much work or dealing with the other groups in anyway other than in this aspect of the project where the groups need to communicate.

Week Eleven

            This is week eleven, thus only four weeks are left. This week also marks the completion of the second part and the start of the final part of the project. Overall the project is going fine, the group members seem able to work together well and our project seems to meet all the requirements. Granted one member is especially amazing in his programming skills, which is a great asset to the group. The class for the week has been a bit peculiar. Professor Downing for the most part has continually specified that this is not a python course, but databases. However, the last week seemed to focus entirely on python coding and how immutable versus mutable data types. I am uncertain if this is being done to help with the coding aspect, but thus far I am not seeing the correlation between learning the data types and how they are stored and other aspects of their reaction in terms of memory and programming. I am waiting to see how or if it will tie in with the mySql databases or other forms of data storage. But other than that one confusion over the course material, the class itself is fine. The professor still cares about his students doing well, so he takes things slow with the material and tries to make sure that everyone understands and still punctuates his points with curses for emphasis, which still amuses me greatly. So other than the material the class is going well in terms of experience of the course and my feelings towards it. And only four more weeks of material to go, which also means registration is coming up. Not sure if anyone other than the professor and those in the class read these, but it is not a bad class to take. It just requires a lot of outside class time to program and study. However, the professor is pretty good and the material seems beneficial to learn in the long run of databases, excluding the recent material to which I am still unsure of how it connects with the databases.

Week Ten

            The past week was the tenth week of class, so only five remain till the end. The past week was fairly uneventful in the class proceedings. We went over more material of the course without much issue, though the professor did send out an email mentioning how no one seems to go to his office hours, where he offered to help in both current class work and overall academic career issues. The email of course reinforces my long running comment on how Professor Downing cares about his students’ well-being both inside and outside of the classroom setting. Anyways, the typical idea is that going to your professor’s office hours is probably for the best, though I cannot speak personally for Professor Downing’s since I have never been to them, but it stands to reason that they would probably help if you are having trouble with an academic issue. Though if I am to justify why I myself have yet to go to one of his office hours than that is simply because my schedule leaves me with very few free times during the week to do so and those I do have are typically taken up by some work or university bureaucracy nonsense, but I digress.

            This week also involved further group work on the project, which thus far has been going slowly. The group design is still useful and good, though my group may be running into an issue, not because we are bad students or are trying to shirk the work, but because we are good students and this is the time of the semester when classes start trying to either cram in the last bit of material or tests before starting to push the work for the final. I am not trying to say anything negative about any class, but it must be said that a computer science course does require a lot of outside work to program and reinforce the material. I think some forget that even though it is not a major specific course, that it still involves a lot of programming. So for those who are thinking about taking this course, make sure you can handle all the work along with your other classes.

Week Nine

            So this is the ninth week of class, which means only six remain before classes are completed. This week was interesting that one of the classes was spent listening to a talk about mobile app creation from a company offering jobs and internships to students. Professor Downing allowing this event to take place, during an entire class no less, shows how much emphasis he puts on his students succeeding and not just in class. As I have mentioned before, he talked a lot about various opportunities throughout the semester for getting an internship, which is highly beneficial to succeeding later on, by getting experience and connections. So this is a prime example of how much he wishes to impress this idea, by using a class day for that purpose. This goes to show how much he cares about the success of his students both in class and outside of class, rather than some professor who only care about getting the material across and nothing else.

            The other big part of this week was the due date of the group project. The inclusion of a group project in and of itself can be beneficial since he has both pointed out verbally and in reading assignments about how in a company one would need to work in groups to get programs or software completed, thus it becomes a glimpse at the real world situation. Plus it does go against the stereotype that programmers all work alone in the dark eating nothing but pizza. In either case, I am finding that for this project having a group is really beneficial and having a group who will actually communicate and do their share of the work is even better. Obviously one cannot always know in advance who will be like that or not, but the professor has at times suggested studying in groups, which would give you a better idea of who was serious and who was not. And the pair project prior to this did the same with a single individual. It does beg the question if that is all part of his design when setting up the progression of projects to culminate into a group project.

Week Eight

            This is the eight week of class, which marks the middle of the semester, as well as spring break occurring. My experience of class for the week was incomplete, since I was absent Friday. However, as I said previously it is a good policy to have to email your professor in advance when you are going to be absent and you know ahead of time. I did so and Professor Downing was more than fair, very generous in actuality, in his response to it. So that in and of itself reemphasized how much the professor cares about his students and how respect and politeness can go both ways.

            This week also marks the start of the group project and thus far it has been interesting, not necessarily in a good way. The group itself is working fine, it seems to be good. The “interesting” part is in the attempt at collaborating between groups, where Professor Downing was right when he said how hard it was to try and organize all the groups to accept a single schema. But that was to be expected since trying to unify eight groups is fairly difficult. Anyways, my group by itself is just fine. The professor on the first day made us write down the numbers of those sitting by us in an attempt to get people to talk, which worked fairly well with regards to creating a group. It let us contact some people we talked to to create a group, since we knew a bit about one another to help facilitate working together.

            Other than the group stuff, the week consisted of discussing the project and a very thorough look at joins. Not to get into detail on class material, it just reemphasized how much he wants his students to understand the material. He will go in-depth into the material to literally beat the point across till it is absolutely clear, which is not a bad teaching style. It works for those who need to see examples, whereas it is a tad tedious for those who get it the first time, but the needs of the many usually outweigh the few in this regard which is fine.