CST 338 - Week 4

 Markov Review

1. I worked with Maria I. and Chris T.

2. My strategy for solving the Markov assignment was just a dive-straight-in approach. I didn't do much planning and instead just went down the list of prompts and implemented the different methods as I went.

3. Both my teammates had a more strategic approach to solving Markov by ensuring tests passed one by one or by solving methods that other methods were dependent on first.

4. In the future, I'll probably try to take more time understanding what each function does before writing them. There were a few times where I confused myself due to misunderstanding of how the different methods connected.

5. According to my classmates, my code did seem to follow Java style guidelines overall.

CST 338 - Week 3

Jotto Code Review 

1.       For this review, I reviewed Brandon H and Chris T’s codes. My code is meant to be reviewed by Ryan M and Maria I.

2.      I received some feedback about my comments being more descriptive. For example, at the beginning of my code, explaining what Jotto is and how it’s meant to work. This is definitely something I’ve always needed work on as I have a tendency to leave out comments completely.

3.      I will definitely be making more thorough comments on future assignments. Another thing I noticed for myself as I looked through other people’s codes, was that I sometimes do the error-checking inside a method instead of before it is called, which just shows that I need to slow down and read the prompt thoroughly before working through the algorithms.

4.      Nobody seemed to struggle with a specific unit test, but more so just getting used to the JUnit style of unit testing in the first place and how to connect stubs of code in order to be able to pass tests as a whole. If I had to choose a specific test, it seems that the most challenging was getLetterCount and working out how to account for doubles.

5.      The existing tests could be improved. At one point during the process of developing my code, I was passing all of the unit tests, however I had a bug that was causing a runtime exception when entering a 5-letter guess, so sometimes the code would break even though the tests implied that it was correct.

6.      My biggest struggle during this assignment was tailoring my code to the prompt. I’ve done my share of larger projects, but they’ve been generally open-ended, so I’ve been able to connect and name different methods and I saw fit. Adjusting my flow to follow the prompts and getting used to how this type of unit testing works was definitely the hardest part of this assignment for me.

7.      It seemed that most people on my team, like myself, struggled to stay aligned with the directions. I think being able to adapt to someone else’s plan of action will be invaluable moving forward, but it is definitely a skill that needs to be practiced. This was especially challenging for this assignment as it’s the first full-calorie homework and we are still getting used to Dr. C’s style.

8.     I know it’s required, but I think I’m most proud of figuring out how to run/assess the individual unit tests. I struggle with change, and I do a lot of debugging using print strings (inefficient, I know), so being able to understand what’s going on in the unit tests and also how to use them to my advantage was a win for me.

CST 338 - Week 2

 Jotto

For this week, we spent the majority of the time working on Jotto and related assignments. The hardest part of this project was getting used to following someone else's organization. In previous classes, my assignments have all been generally open-ended in the sense that if you achieved the same final result, you were able to organize the project as you wished. Sometimes there were guidelines for specific functions, but how you implemented and called each method was completely up to you. I found myself reading and re-reading the instructions to understand what exactly I was meant to be doing with each step in this project. It will definitely take some practice for me to get confident with this type of setup.

The assignment in general wasn't too hard. The one issue I did have was with the unit test for showPlayerGuesses. I was passing it fine until I added the section regarding the player updating the wordList. I thought that the "press 'enter' to continue" was included at the end of each method, when it was instead intending to be part of the menu setup in play(). None of the other unit tests had checked for this, so I didn't figure out my mistake until I was testing this method. Once I figured that out, I solved the problem immediately and the program worked as intended. 

Overall, this assignment was great practice for me to get used to unit testing and debugging in Java/intelliJ. I had very minimal Java experience before this class, so these skills will prove valuable for me in the upcoming weeks.

CST 338 - Module 1

 CodingBat Challenges

For this module, Dr. C had us doing some coding challenges via CodingBat. This was my favorite part of the module as I love doing coding challenges and do them quite often in my free time. I've coded some Java in the past, but I've focused mainly on C++ and Python, so this was a good review for me. There weren't any challenges that I felt were difficult, but I did try to challenge myself to keep my solutions short and incorporated quite a few ternary operators. Another challenge for me was this "countCode" problem that was nicely solved with regular expressions. My original solution (without regex) worked, but certainly wasn't "nice", so I used the problem as an excuse to refresh on regular expressions and wrote a better solution.

CST 300 - Module 8

 Video Reviews

Stack Otterflow

I really enjoyed the videos. I thought the topic was well covered and the presentation was clear. The quality of the research seems good and video production kept my attention. The narrator switching was seamless and cohesive and it seemed that the team worked well together. I do think that the team did a good job considering the audience for each video.

Gigabit Goon Squad

This topic was really well-covered and it is easy to see that the team did quality research. The videos absolutely catered to their intended audience, although I do wish that the science professional video had some more visual aids in the style of the casual video as it would have made the content more engaging.

Otter Devs

I thought the short video was really well done and engaging. The long video could have used more engaging visual aids, but the presentation was thorough. I thought they covered a lot of cool ways that the technology could be implemented. One suggestion that I have would be to utilize only one narrator for the short video for more focus.

Class Review

I thought the class was very useful for improving my professional and academic writing. It also improved my skill in regards to working with a team regularly. My team regularly used Discord to meet. We did well communicating and staying on top of assignments, but following this class I think we will try to aim "jobs" based on each other's strengths and weaknesses as we learned how to do from the OLI.

CST 300 - Extra Credit Book Report/Critique

 

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Report

    Charles Duhigg is an American journalist who published The Power of  Habit in order to highlight new discoveries about how and why habits emerge in our everyday lives. In this book, he goes over the science of habit forming, why they exist, and some key ideas about how they can be changed. He believes that by understanding our habits, we will unlock the door to bettering our lives, whether personally or professionally.

    Duhigg starts off the book by discussing how habits work at the neurological level. He tells the story of Eugene Pauly, who was taken to the hospital after memory loss and vomiting due to viral encephalitis. Although doctors were able to prevent the spread of the disease, there was nothing they could do about the damage already done. Scientists studied “E.P.”’s brain and discovered that he was able to remember things from years ago, and retained all the habits from his younger years, but was unable to consciously form new memories about his life and didn’t remember anything from the last 2 or 3 decades. If you were to ask him where he lived, he couldn’t tell you. The crazy part was that, after taking a walk with his wife every morning, he was able to make his way home out of habit, without knowing how to get there. This caused scientists to realize that habits formed whether you were aware of them or not. After multiple studies, scientists determined that habits form in a loop – cue, routine, reward – and become automatic. When paired with a craving, or an anticipation of the reward, these habits drive our behaviors without us even thinking about it.

    The next sections of the book discuss how we can use the information about habit loops to change our bad habits. The interesting part is that bad habits cannot be fully eliminated, but instead can be modified. We use our knowledge about what triggers a habit (a cue and a craving) to change the routine but deliver the same reward. For example, Duhigg talks about Tony Dungy and how he modified the Buccaneers’ habits to make it so they were able to react on the football field unthinkingly and therefore much quicker than their opponents. This control of the habit loop caused them to become a winning team. A similar thought process is used to help addicts get over their vices. Take AA’s strategy of identifying one’s trigger (i.e. loneliness), changing the routine (i.e. calling a sponsor instead of drinking), and then getting the same relief and reassurance that alcohol would bring (but from a friendly phone call instead), which has proven to be successful for many people. One of the most important takeaways from this section has to do with keystone habits, which are habits that trigger a ripple effect. For example, when you start going to the gym regularly, you tend to eat healthier also.

    The book goes on to discuss how companies have been able to tap into people’s habits in order to succeed. From directly changing the habits of their employees like Paul O’Neill did with the company Alcoa to analyzing people’s habits in order to sell them targeted products, like Target, businesses have been able to use knowledge of people’s habits to their benefit. It’s important to note that when businesses allow bad habits to exist in the workplace, even small ones, it can have detrimental consequences – as shown by the problems at King’s Cross Station and Rhode Island Hospital.

    One of the most fascinating sections of the book had to do with what are called social habits. We are told the stories of Saddleback Church and the Montgomery Bus Boycott to demonstrate what can happen when our social habits come into play. It’s incredible to think that something that we consider so common – peer pressure – has the power to fuel widespread movements when imposed by certain people just because of the way that it influences our social habits.

    The book finishes by considering how much free will we really have when we consider how far we succumb to our habits. The stories of Brian Thomas and Angie Bachmann were interesting to think about. At what point do our habits truly take over our behavior? Why do we have an instinct to forgive certain habits, but condemn people for others? The afterword describes that the book began as an explanation of research surrounding habits, but ended up being a lesson in giving ourselves the power to control our own lives. By making small changes in their daily routine, or adjustments in the way we choose to view things, we are able to become the best version of ourselves.

Critique

Overall, I thought The Power of Habit was an incredible read. While I have always been aware of habits that I have, whether good or bad, it never really occurred to me what was going on inside my brain. This book helped me realize that if I am able to create good habits regarding my school and health, it will become much easier for me to be successful, as that productive behavior will become automatic. I wasn’t aware of it until now, but I already utilize some of the strategies talked about in the book. For example, whenever I start brewing a pot of coffee after dropping my kids at school, I sit down and start doing my schoolwork for the day. If I skip making a pot of coffee, I tend to take a lot longer to get started with anything productive, even if I don’t need the caffeine. The coffee triggers my habit of studying automatically, so I don’t have to consciously make an effort to be productive. I plan to make myself more aware of my habits by choosing my desired reward and setting a clear and repetitive path to achieve it. This will also be very useful to me once I settle into a career as I can structure my habits to give myself the best work-life balance possible.

CST 300 - Module 7

 Final Research Video Project

For the final research video, we have been collaborating over Discord as we have for most of our group assignments. We broke up the project by editing (two people), the three main points of generative AI, and an intro/conclusion, but we have been in constant communication as we go. We are uploading our video clips and any necessary slides using Google Drive and are planning to collaborate for the voice-over using Adobe Premier. I think for next time, the only thing that I would do differently is to start sooner as I think we were all preoccupied with our ethics essays. It could just be that because I have no experience making a video that portion of the project is making me a little nervous.

Lecture Readings

    ted.com

    For the ted.com videos, the first I chose was related to my own interest in linguistics. I've loved learning languages since I was a child and watched a video on the benefits of bilingualism. It was interesting to hear about the differences between how and when you learn a language, and how it might not be obvious to outsiders. I'd always assumed that learning more than one language can help your brain engage in different tasks, but it was cool to learn that it can actually delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease. The second I chose was How virtual reality turns students into scientists. It was a cool talk about how Google Cardboard was used to provide accessibility to virtual reality as a way to get students engaged in a science class's curriculum. I think using emerging technologies to aid in education is very interesting and a great way of getting students more involved in topics they might not see themselves enjoying.

    Visual Aids/Presentation

    It was funny to watch the comedy video, Life After Death by PowerPoint. I know it's a joke, but it made clear how some visual aids are overdone or more distracting than they are useful. The visual aids and props article was a good resource for how to balance visual aids with real information and not use them as a substitute or a distraction for a poorly planned presentation.