CS373 Spring 2021 — Maria “Fina” Sierra

Blogs #7: Apr 5 — Apr 11

It has been another week in CS373! This week was actually pretty relaxed following the submission of a major project for a different course on Tuesday. I had fewer weekly homework obligations, and fewer organizational responsibilities, so I found more time to research design implementations for our Phase III submission, which helped me feel more on top of things regarding this project. I’m looking forward to implementing what I learned for our submission on Friday!

What did I do this past week?

The week started off busy, as I needed to make significant progress on a group project in a different course. I spent all of Monday and Tuesday preparing for our submission of this project. Once that was out of the way, I was able to breathe easily. I didn’t have too many academic or personal obligations, so I was able to focus the rest of the week on research for Phase III, studying for an upcoming exam, and preparing for graduation photos during the weekend.

What is in your way?

There is not too much in my way at the moment. I’m working solo on a specific component for Phase III, so I can move at my own pace, which is nice. I’m hoping my implementation is up to standard for the rest of the group. Other than that, I am just preparing for an exam this upcoming Wednesday, which will be the only other thing on my plate.

What will you do next week?

This coming week is only shadowed by an exam that I have on Wednesday. I’ll be dividing my attention between the project and that until that day. After that, I will just be working on my implementation for the project.

What did you think of the ‘Why Getter and Setter Methods are Evil’?

I have not formally learned about object-oriented programming and this article piqued my interest in Professor Downings’ other course, OOP. I agreed with the general concepts and was intrigued to learn a bit more about OOP in the future.

What was your experience of select, project, cross-join, and theta join?

I felt pretty confident with selection and project — which was a relief as we had many exercises this past week. I will need to review cross-join and theta-join, as I remember going over these in class and comprehending them during lecture, but am having trouble recollecting the details at the moment.

What made you happy this week?

I was able to take graduation photos this weekend, as the weather was absolutely beautiful! It is finally starting to get sunny and warm (as Texas spring/summer should be) which is a preferred weather type of mine. I just hope we don’t leap into 100-degree weather too rapidly because that always ruins it.

Pick of the Week:

I found a great website for mobile development learning — https://www.raywenderlich.com/. Unfortunately, they have moved many of their free courses to a subscription-based service, but I think that their learning platform is very thorough and super intuitive.