Software Engineering Week 1 - Off to a good start

Week 1 - Off to a good start

There's lots of different people in the world so starting a new class is always interesting. The great thing about this class is that the way it is being run makes sense. There's no weird stuff, no tricks, things are just laid out in a way that looks well designed for student skill growth. What are the key attributes that appear so far which lead me to believe this?

1) Course content available early - If you are disorganized like me and only looking to focus on critical tasks as they pop up it is important to have as much information as possible. A friend once told me to ask the question "what happens if you do nothing?" as a metric for task priority assignment in a resource constrained environment. With more information available I can find key targets that can be hit early to prevent stress if

2) Consistent forum posts leading to e-mail updates on my phone for core assignment road blocks - In a class like this there are going to be generic problems that everybody runs in to. The instructor and TA in this class seem well aligned with the tools at hand and quickly respond to growing problems early enough during the assignment week for resolution.

3) Open ended assignments - This is a critical attribute that seems to appear in well run art classes. By leaving assignments open ended there is room for people to focus on the areas of a problem that are inspiring to them. As an example in an English class of mine there was extra credit for making a video about a writing topic. So I went ahead and produced a short cartoon on my computer, loaded it on to a VHS taps, and played it in class. The other students weren't sure what to make of my cartoon with a dinosaur eating people but the skill growth was there for sure. Similarly in a software class like this there is room to throw in a cutout of a dinosaur or anything that makes you happy and doesn't mess up your agile schedule.

There are still plenty of ways to mess this up for sure. It won't be because of poor course structure though. Personally I look forward to seeing what cool projects people create within this framework over the coming weeks.