CS373 Spring 2020 Final Entry: Dillan Holland

What did you like the least about the class?

I feel like there was a big disconnect between what was being taught in class and what our project was about. It seemed the material in class did not help much with what we did; although the material in class is useful.

What did you like the most about the class?

Professor Downing is an excellent teacher and is a wealth of knowledge. I really enjoyed his teaching style, and I felt I learned a lot this semester. This class helps prepare students for real-world work, such as handling merges on projects.

What’s the most significant thing you learned?

The most significant thing I learned in this class was Python. The only other time I had used Python was my very first semester in college, and I find it fitting that my last semester was spent relearning, and improving my knowledge of this useful language.

How many hours a week did you spend coding/debugging/testing for this class?

This class took up about 10 to 15 hours of my time. The part I did for our project was something I was very comfortable and familiar with so I did not do much research to complete my tasks.

How many hours a week did you spend reading/studying for this class?

I spend about 2–4 hours going over the material. It was easy to following along in class; professor Downing does a great job.

How many lines of code do you think you wrote?

I honestly have no idea, but I would guess about 500. A lot of code was overwritten to meet the new demands of our project.

What required tool did you not know and now find very useful?

I had never used Slack before, and I thought it was a very useful resource.

What’s the most useful Web dev tool that your group used that was not required?

We used SQLAlchemy to pull data from our database using Python. I had never used it before and found it a bit challenging, but overall good to use.

How did you feel about your group having to self-teach many, many technologies?

I think it is good to prepare students for real-life work, but sometimes it is stressful when we can't solve a problem with a technology we are unfamiliar with.

How did you feel about the two-stage quizzes and tests?

I liked them. It gives students a chance to understand what they did wrong or help others if they got the question right.

How did you feel about the cold calling, in the end?

I think it is very effective in making sure students are paying attention. I always was reading and listening in case I was called on so I could give a good answer.