CST 300 Week 6

Week 6

We've had a lot of team projects this week, so it's been a little difficult to get everything done as we need to get together as a group (which limits times we can complete homework). I have enjoyed learning about different types of fallacies and trying to find them in the current media. I know that they're everywhere, but I still am not very quick to find them. Hopefully, I can strengthen this with time. I also liked getting a brief introduction to what we will be working on in the next course. I've done very mild programming with python (mostly fixing up scripts) and look forward to getting full development done with it. My team started a little spreadsheet where we can log our ideas for our final project. We have a few, but haven't really gotten to fleshing out how this is going to work. The guidelines are extremely broad at this point. I'm assuming we will have more guidance for this project next week. We also had a personality test assigned this week, but I've followed the MBTI personality types for a while and know that I'm of the type ISTJ.

Career Development Readings [1] [2]

While the careers site isn't very useful, the career guide that CSU, Monterey Bay offers is very extensive and I've enjoyed looking through it. I already have a job in the tech field, so I am not looking for an internship or to get my first job. However, most of the advice is general and applicable at any stage in your career. I hadn't heard the 1 minute commercial idea yet and I really like it, so I will probably take that on with me on my next career move. Also, it's always good to refresh your resume and consider what you'd like to see on it. However, it's difficult to get good interview advice from a document like this. Ideally, we would have mock Skype interviews or something to give us better guidance on how to behave, or what to avoid in an interview. 

Career Development - Job and Internship Search

This section touched on researching the companies that you're applying for, which is very important. Companies love it when you know about them and are excited to work for them. It also makes the conversation go so much more smoothly. The guide also provides resources for finding jobs like the Otter jobs website and career fairs. There are also a ton of job searching and posting tools online that are helpful. The job and internship search guide has some very useful advice, like getting together what you will say in that introductory minute when beginning to talk to a company. I have practiced several of these things. However, in my very limited experience the "shotgun" approach has worked for me. This approach involved applying to everything and interviewing everywhere (regardless if you think you're qualified or not). It gave me a lot of practice and I was able to find a company that I really liked that way.

Help Your Teammates to Develop Capstone Ideas

While my team focused a bit more on our final project videos, we also discussed a few capstone ideas. So far we have mostly web based applications, but I'm sure we can come up with more solid ideas as time goes on. Here are some of the ideas we've come up with:

• white noise maker mobile application
• grocery shopping list mobile application
• karaoke on chromecast where content can be obtained from users, or crowdsourced
• coffee review mobile app where you can detail how you liked your coffee and add notes regarding the roast, grind, brewing method, and proportions
• emergency preparedness application, where users can get emergency kit suggestions and quick escape routes based on their locaiton