Reflection

For this post, I will be reflecting upon my recent Software Engineering test and doing a quick update.

The test shocked me at first, which it shouldn't have. It shocked me because I felt like I was writing essays upon essays, it being a complete short answer test. This shouldn't have shocked me, though, considering the nature of software engineering. One thing that did really mess with me on the test, however, was the way we had to recall answers. For example, one of the questions on the test asked about the dual-use dilemma; really just define and describe it. If I am correct now, then I do believe that the dual-use dilemma is that code that you produce can always be misused by someone else for malicious purposes and this is something to keep in mind when creating and disseminating code. This is an idea that is pretty secondhand to most computer scientists in my position, but knowing it specifically by the name 'dual-use dilemma' proved to be the only challenge for that problem. I guess this all really stems from my dislike of typical testing. I prefer a more hands-on approach to tests, rather than just written exams.

Overall, though, I do believe the test went rather well and did test some useful techniques within the realm of computer science and software engineering. For example, we had to detail test cases for a method that was given to us. Figuring out test cases is always a tricky thing to do because of the dozens of trivial examples that can arise that need to be tested. There's usually endpoint cases, blank cases, maximum cases, etc.

As for my update: I'm currently in the works of getting my SpotifyU internship off the ground. It's essentially a marketing internship, but it gives me a chance to work with Spotify, a program that I am, pretty much, obsessed with. I've been enrolled in the intern program for a while, but they have been pretty slow to get us the material we need to actually do the work. My personal research with Learn2Mine is going very well. Obviously I wish I could spend more time on it, much like I did in the Summer, but classes do get in the way of that. One of the reasons I am pumped for graduate school is so that I can spend more time doing research (50/50 ratio of class/research is my hope). That being said, I'm still waiting to hear back from a conference where we have submitted a paper to be a part of the conference proceedings at SIGCSE.

Music listened to while blogging: Badfinger (Breaking Bad inspired this) & Ellie Goulding