Why you should take CS3216

Ok it comes to the end of the semester and I just attended the last lecture. I did plan to write an article for whoever wants to take CS3216 since first day of the semester. However, I never think I will encourage people to take it. Well, I guess I am the one that cried most of times during the semester, freaked out, felt hopeless and what ever negative feelings you can image. It sounds terrible right? Are you scared now? Alright, please dont be scared. Read my blogpost and do the right decision.

What we actually did in CS3216?

We did software development in this course. There are 3 application projects and one presentation about an app in the current market.

“It is just a coding class, nothing much, I can code my own.”

You may have an impression about this course so far. However, it is absolutely not a coding course.

It goes beyond coding.

Firstly, There are around 13 lectures in the semester where you can listen to inspiring talks from in the cool entrepreneurs and get some free pizzas while networking with them.

Secondly, you work with many top students that may be better than you in the class. Hence, if you are not capable enough, you may need to sleep less than other people and did more work in order to meet the standard. However, working with students better than you will make you know your weakness and learn to work on improvement.

Thirdly, other modules teach you skills, this module gives you the reason why you may consider software engineer as a career. It teaches the importance of users, importance of value-adding in an app. In this course, professor and the teaching team are strict about the user experience, and the value/usefulness of a product. Although you may see these concepts mentioned many places, you will learn when you find your app cant get the users.

Fourth, soft skill is important. In this course, you get to promote your app, do marketing for your app, and you are greatly encouraged to talk to potential users and observe the response. These are important if you are a developer that plans to start your own business idea.

Last but not least, it is a life lesson. It teaches me how to do teamwork, how to communicate with people, and how I manage damage when people hate your project. It also pointed out that we should forget about all those pop sentences like YOLO and Be true to yourself. The professor is right, we may be true to the shortterm -self, and then make our longterm self a disaster.

Any suggestion/warning before 3216?

1. I will always remember this. “Feeling is not important. It may blind you. ” End of the day, what is the most important is the idea and the execution, but not how you feel, which didnt create any value. I cant agree with this more. As I mentioned earlier, I cried and got very emotional especially in the beginning of the courses. I cried at night loudly like the sky was failling. I didnt want to go to sleep because I scare the second day is coming. I didnt want to solve problems because I felt we all human, we all deserve good rest and good food rather than these intensive homework. Now I want to tell you that it is proved that feeling is totally useless as it only made me feel bad, but nothing else. Hence, please forget about your feeling and believe in the work you do. If you do more, you will see the change of your project, the positive side of your project, and you will get motivated more. You can get into a positive emotion cycle. Trust me, I cried but I am totally okay now. Everything will go over, just do the work, iterate, do the work, make imporvement.
2. If you are graduating soon, you may probably run out of the time for your job hunting. If you are confident that you can get into Google/Linkedin/Twitter/Airbnb and more after you have a good preparation during the semester, you may consider to find a job first. However, it seemed that usually top students that get into these companies from NUS usually take this course in their year 2/3. It is also proved that if you are not confident in getting SWE in these companies, you may still not be too strong and you may take this opportunity to really build something useful rather than spend a semester improving your resume.
3. It is really a scary module. I dont scare people usually. Get enough sleep, manage your time well, and eat a bit good food if you need.

It is ok. Go apply next year. You know how great it is only when you have been through this. Good luck!