CST300: Module 6 (Week 6)

 Part 1: Help Your Teammates to Develop Capstone Ideas

We discussed some of our ideas but there were no definitive outcomes.  We discussed ideas that centered around Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game development.  Other options related to streamlining, securing, or democratizing applications that center around social networking. One of my initial contributions to the conversations was to suggest taking my hardware-dependent ideas with a grain of salt since some of them hardware represents an obstacle. Meaning, the barriers to implementation are greater. It was also noted that what ever concept we choose should be something that a corporation or government would want to buy.  I agree with this sentiment in that it speaks to the salability of a product. If the goal is to build something that many people would find useful, then it cannot merely be a pet project.  There will be more follow-on conversations to come.

Part 2: Keep Up With Your Learning Journal

My view on the career guide (cover letter & resume) may be unique in that I have been working in the field for years at this point. I completed the assignment from the perspective of an experienced engineer writing an updated resume and cover letter and not that of a new grad or intern. I appreciate that it reminded me to think about how a hiring manager might interpret my message. I usually do not include a cover letter with my resume when I apply for positions but I will at least polish one off and save it for an opportunity where it might be useful.  I have always been interested in the hardware/software interaction and in what Linus Torvalds describes as "interacting with hardware from a software perspective."

Using the chosen topic, we setup an outline - introduction, conclusion, and the points in between.  We populated the bullet points to get a high level understanding of the structure and flow of the presentation.  We also started working on gathering resources to inform our research.  We looked at previous cohort presentations and discussed optimal approaches to this project.  We want to avoid monotony, be engaging, use visual representations when it is useful, along with other methods to maintain audience attention.  We are now settling on who will be responsible for each portion of the presentation.