CST 300 Week 1

Week 1

This week we spent most of our time introducing ourselves in various ways and getting acquainted with one another. Many of the other students in the program are also working full time while trying to obtain their degree on the side. While I'm somewhat worried for all of us, I'm also relieved that I'm not the only one. I've been very nervous about how I'm going to be able to complete all of the assignments with regular life events happening on the side. Most of the material was either preparatory to get us ready for the intensity of studying online, while other material was a refresher. We had a large reading that covered several types academic writing (essays, journals, etc.) that was helpful for me since I haven't taken any courses in about two years. There were also a couple of forums, which were mostly basic introductions and experience descriptions.

5 Step Strategy for Student Success

Overall, the steps covered in the 5 Step Strategy for Student Success with Online Learning article were good advice. However, for myself I will have to tweak many of these. For example, the article recommends logging onto the course home page at least three times a week, but for myself I know it would be beneficial to just make it a daily habit in order to keep myself up to date. I'm planning on opening up iLearn every week day prior to work to check up on what's happening. That should keep me on track since it's a constant reminder that I have things to do. Making connections with classmates is probably the best advice in the article.  I think that having people that make you accountable and feel obligated to join in the assignments is crucial to enjoying and performing well in any situation, especially online.

Weekly Study Time Commitment

I work during the day from Monday through Friday, so my available time to study is weeknights and weekends. For some odd reason Thursday traffic is the worst in LA, so I'm not even going to bother attempting to get anything done on Thursday outside of work and my only in person course.

Daily Study Tasks

• Monday (Overflow < 2 hours)
• Finish up any assignments that weren't completed in scheduled time.
• Tuesday (Overflow < 2 hours)
• Finish up any assignments that weren't completed in scheduled time.
• Wednesday (2 hours)
• Check emails and notifications for module.
• Use defined module material to make a schedule for the week.
• Check off "low hanging fruit" or any quick to-do items (quick forum posts, maybe).
• Thursday (0 hours)
• Friday (2 hours)
• Read lecture items (do quizzes if completed).
• Saturday (2 hours)
• Read lab items (do quizzes if completed).
• Sunday (6 hours)
• Read any items that weren't read yet.
• Complete quizzes, assignments, and forum posts.
• Meet with group?

My Schedule Looks Busy

Time spent at work is highlighted in blue. I've left gaps between study time and work to allow myself some time to decompress and eat. Green is study time. Some of that is allocated for this ProSeminar course, while the rest is for completing homework assigned for the Data Structures course and reading material for Philosophy. 

Group Resume

The title of this assignment seemed to cause some confusion. The assignment is to build a fake company with your team, where you will have to pitch your company to a potential client or customer. So, it appeared that many people (like me) weren't sure if the assignment was supposed to be like a regular resume format, or like an about us page in flier format for a company. My team took the flier route and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. While we were short a member, the three of us were pretty quick at getting something together. My main complaint about this assignment is that we had four days to try and get a group together to get the rough draft turned in, which is difficult to coordinate with a whole group of people with various schedules. And then following that, we had to get together a separate day in order to finalize the resume. Being able to pick just one day out of an entire week is much easier to do with more than two people.

Our final team resume: 

Industry Analysis Paper

I've looked over the requirements for the industry analysis paper and have decided to look into a company in the healthcare industry called Theranos. I really like what they're doing and would love to eventually work for them. I don't want to give away too much right now, but I'm excited to learn more about the company and get more of an idea of the employment options in the healthcare tech field.