Friday, April 16, 2010

Last Entry for CS3216: What I've learnt

Time flies, in a blink of an eye its the 13th week of school term and here I am blogging my last entry for CS3216. Its been a hectic semester but it was worth it after all as I've acquired new knowledge and friends too. This class was an eye opener for me after 2 years in NUS as I really get to see people from various backgrounds and competencies coming together and work on their master piece which were show cased on 14 April 2010.

What I felt and saw about the class
1) People whom are passionate in what they are doing actually can make things possible. The group whom worked on the Mood Diary impressed me the most as their passion and hardwork paid off with more than 10k+ monthly user when their FB app was launched. They are a group of individuals whom doesn't have technical expertises but yet they were able to produce such a sticky app. Congratz. Not like the other groups aren't good, no offence, just that I have a deep impression of the Mood Diary group.
2) I felt that this class is full of possibilities and creativity. Everyone is a motivational factor for one another, striving for the best and pushing one another to the LIMIT.
3) The approach of each lecture is a new concept in Singapore as most of the lectures were "outsourced" to other speakers. Speakers came from diverse backgrounds with people from the industries, school tech. support and seniors whom have taken the course. This not only spice up the class and such "open content" brings knowledge and insights to students.

What I learnt
1) Communication: This is important as miscommunication will delay the team's progress and cause misunderstandings.
2) Open API: Usage of open apis like Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, made life easy and made applications more interactive and featureful.
3) FB apps and Google wave gadgets: I was amazed by the potential of google wave and looking forward to its future.
4) Team work: Team dynamics is very important. Even though there were a lot of speeches on team dynamics but I felt it 100% from my FB assignment and Google Wave assignment. With a good team, we managed to pull it off all thanks to my team which I owe them one :D Thanks guys, you know who you are.
5) Open mind: One must not be confined to his or her own thinking or else he or she will most likely run into failure, with an open mindset of listening and accepting ideas one can then move further and longer (ha this sounds like some advertisement slogan or message).
6) Use something sexy icons in your presentation: This might seem to be a joke but no joke some of my classmates told me "How come all your presentation have sexy ladies in low cut blouse and voluptuous?". I remembered in my FB seminar i used a compare and contrast pic of Mona Lisa and in my final project poster i used a sexy waitress. At the end of the day people know me since I'm such a low profile to begin with :p

I've come to the end of the blog, last but not least I would like to thank Prof Ben Leong for making the class interesting, the TAs/helpers whom marked the assignments and conduct workshops, speakers whom gave wonderful and insightful speeches, and everyone in CS3216 2010

Btw this were the pics i used in my FB seminar and poster respectively: