CS 373 Spring 2020: Final Entry

What did you like the least about the class?

I wish there was more correlation with projects and the class lectures. I think Project 1 can be used to build a simple react app or a basic backend server instead of Collatz.

What did you like the most about the class?

I enjoyed the projects the most in this class. I got the opportunity to learn so many new technologies such as React, AWS, Flask etc. In addition, I was able to learn non-technical skills as well by learning how to communicate with my team members effectively.

What’s the most significant thing you learned?

Definitely React! I worked as frontend developer throughout the project.

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

I spent typically 8–10 hours on average coding and testing for each project. There typically wasn’t much debugging to do.

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

I spent typically 6–8 hours in total to study for exams. I did hackerrank exercises maybe 2 times to understand the concepts and went over the class notes and quizzes. I read for maybe 30 minutes per week for the weekly papers.

How many lines of code do you think you wrote?

I think I wrote maybe 1500–2000 lines of code. However, most of the code I wrote was adapted from online tutorials and I changed to it fit our needs.

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

Definitely React. I knew very little about React before I joined the class, however I got a much better understanding of it as I watched tutorials and wrote code.

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

We used Microsoft Azure to pull related images for our various instance pages.

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

It was a bit difficult at first, but I think it was a great way to learn new concepts. This will be something that will be expected of us as we begin to join industry and this class prepares us well for that transition.

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

I thought the two-stage quizzes were definitely helpful. If I missed something on the quiz, I can easily get clarification for why I missed it.

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

Initially I was very nervous about the cold calling concept, but I slowly began to like it. It forced me to pay attention during class and I was able to get a lot more out of the lectures.