CSUMB Week 7 (19 Feb 2025 - 25 Feb 2025)

Part One

Reflect on your team's Final Research Video Project Planning.  How did you collaborate?  What tools did you use to communicate and produce? Is the process smooth, what will you do differently next time in large collaborative projects?

I enjoyed the form of collaboration we came up with. The process was very smooth. We basically just put a whole bunch of individual facts that we learned onto one page for every section rather than dividing and conquering a section. We then grouped these facts into relevant categories to create a section. This way we contributed a bit into every section. How we will edit the videos together, however, was trickier. Unless we sit together on a single computer for several hours in a row, we're not sure how to edit sections without "divide and conquer." For this reason, we then assigned ourselves to a section and created a video segment for it. We will then combine and patch our parts together.

Part Two

Please reflect on the Lecture readings in this section and what you have learned from this week's activities.

One Ted talk video that is related to CS and/or technology:

Chin-Teng Lin: The mind-reading potential of AI | TED Talk

This was one was really interesting. To have AI translate brain EEG to words sound amazing. I didn't think something like this would be possible. To then imply that it may be possible to have a headset where the AI reads your intended action and have a robot in the distance perform it, sounds incredibly useful. I do wonder about the technicality of this endeavor. Is it just a matter of amassing a whole bunch of raw EEG wave data and brute training through supervised learning or something else?

One Ted talk video that was of my interest:

Christine Blume: Why daylight is the secret to great sleep | TED Talk

I chose this as my non cs-related personal interest since I'm always interested in getting a better sleep. I understand that blue lights mess with the circadian rhythm, but I did not know a lack of sunlight also disturbs your sleep cycle. I simply thought a lack of light in advance was necessary for a good sleep (e.g. not doing computer work right before deciding to sleep). Instead, this TED Talk taught me that having received sunlight will actually boost your REM sleep as well and that this only works with sunlight (not led, lamp, computer screen, etc.). I should really take this as a sign to walk outside more often. 

P.S. Life After Death by Powerpoint (Corporate Comedy Video)

I really enjoyed the comedic approach to his presentation style. Felt that his points were "rung" more clearly in my head through his lively act.

CSUMB Week 6 (12 Feb 2025 - 18 Feb 2025)

Part 1: Help Your Teammates to Develop Capstone Ideas

So far, we decided to create an app but have not agreed on further details as of yet. One agreement we made was to not create a game as it seemed cliche and did not seem relevant to any of our goals. Michael seemed to be interested in a data analytic based app for some of the popular video games that are being played by many young people such as League of Legend. This doesn't seem like a bad idea as it also lets us practice accessing and using various APIs. 

Part 2: Keep Up with Your Learning Journal

As a team, we did extensively discuss how to contribute toward the video group project. In order to avoid a "divide and conquer" method, I suggested we all write our own list of "statements of facts (or learning)" We then create a master sheet and decide together which facts or knowledge to include and then order them in a way that makes sense for presentation. I believe this will allow us all to evenly and holistically contribute toward all the phases (intro, content, and ending) of the video as opposed to just a single person being assigned to each phase. As a team we also decided to look at videos that does well in its presentation style (such as Vox) to learn some effective delivery styles. 

Industry Expert Interview - Software Engineering

 Introduction

This week, I got to interview someone within the tech industry. The name of the person that I interviewed is Taha Khan. He is a senior software engineer at Amazon, and we interviewed through the phone. I reached out and interviewed Taha since I figured he represents a good figure, or a milestone, that I myself would want to eventually meet. 

I asked many questions but decided to only include the bolded ones on the bottom in this writing since they seemed the most relevant. The answers written down below may not always be exactly as physically stated since it was based on my note taking speed; however, it captures the sentiment correctly. 

What did your career path look like? Did you go straight into a software engineering role?

“First job, yes. I wrote software for Northwestern Mutual, and I worked on stock stuff. Helped create an app that allowed investors to decide what to invest on. Basically, I made benchmark testing for theoretical spending and growth. I now work at Amazon working on the Alexa software”

How many applications did you apply for until you got your first job?
“Back then, I sent in about 350 applications. I eventually got my first job due to a referral from a friend. I know I know. Knowing who can refer and vouch for you is incredibly important. That’s the truth. Admittingly, I did poorly on many interviews. There weren't a lot of resources back then and LeetCode was barely ever mentioned or talked about.”

What are some of your most significant challenges in your role?

“When you start your first job, you do not have the right tools or the knowledge to survive right off the bat. Schools don’t teach you any industry knowledge or protocols since they only care about theoretical and basic foundations. This problem is compounded by the fact that a lot of US companies don’t like to provide training since they see it as a cost measure rather than as an investment. They mostly just hope that some other companies trained you first in the past… so it becomes this game of merry-go-around where they all hope someone else has trained you first. In other words, you need to pick up the pace asap and grind.”

What is some industry standard/norm changes you’ve seen so far?

“There’s two that I can think of. The type of people that’s been joining lately and the frequency in the usage of AI tools. Nowadays it seems people only join software engineering strictly for money. Secondly, the frequency of which we use AI tools for tasks has increased.”

Any industry trends you see so far?

“There is a strong distaste for outages. In the past it might have been acceptable or considered a fact of life but now it is unacceptable to have downtimes in your software, app, program, etc. The industry also wants to move onto easier to understand languages such as python. This is due to many bad products that’s been released due to complications caused by complicated languages. Simple languages are more readily accessible, learnable, and maintainable. “

What advice do you have for those who want to join the software industry?

“Always learn. You can’t be complacent in this career. In addition, always work on your problem-solving skill; however, I do want to say that not all problems require a technical solution. This is because the more you code, the more you have to support those code. Sometimes, less is better.”

Post-Interview Reflection Report

Taha was pretty straight to the point. A man who likes to be concise. I can appreciate this. The takeaway I got was that this is a rigorous career. You must constantly learn and avoid becoming complacent, or risk being laid off. Looks like joining the industry is rough as well even back then (pre-2020) just as it is now. To help me get prepared, I should make many friends, network, and build a portfolio. I’ll also have to go beyond fundamentals and delve into some specific relevant industry knowledge such as protocols and tools companies may use (or at least become familiar with). Fortunately, I already expected all of this when I decided to switch careers which helped me to mentally prepare for this reality. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, and I will still make the conscious decision to pursue this path. 

An interesting snippet Taha mentioned that stuck with me was how people nowadays only join software engineering for money. I sometimes wonder if all the doom and dismay from recent graduates are simply due to them being unprepared for the actual reality. The hype trend from the pandemic days when every tech influencer boasted about making 6 figure salaries on a 10-hour work weekday really did not help either. The truth is much different. This career is not to be cruised on in auto pilot. Success requires immense work, and I will have to constantly learn and stay on top of the trend if I wish to succeed. It is a good thing that I have passion for it to begin with.

CSUMB Week 5 (5 Feb 2025 - 11 Feb 2025)

Part One: Support and Comment on Teammates' Goals

Comments for Brandon:
https://brandonatcsumb.blogspot.com/2025/02/week-4.html

Comments for Valentina:
https://valentinacsjournal.blogspot.com/2025/02/4-january-29th-february-4th-1.html?sc=1739210541780#c98484686114293815

Part Two: Possible Capstone Ideas

    We as a team decided to either create a website or an app instead of a game, as that seems too cliche. For a website, perhaps something that deals with payment systems seems like a good idea. Another one would be to create a web store. Better yet, I suppose we can just combine those two. Lastly, we can create something entirely different. Maybe some form of a data analytic website. I do manual analysis on some niche games, but I'll have to choose something more well known that is familiar with my teammates. 

    As a side, I can probably do another capstone project on my own. Something that deals with machine learning or AI. I recall, while watching previous capstone projects, that there was an AI institute one of the past cohorts has contacted. I should reach out to them to see what, if any, opportunities and ideas may exist. 

Part Three: Keep Up With Your Learning Journal

While researching on some topics our team can make a video on, I came up with two that interested me greatly:

1. The AI race between USA and China

2. Cryptography in the quantum age

    Any topic involving AI will naturally grab my attention, so the news of DeepSeek definitely kept my mind busy. The potential for the massive disruption it will cause on USA's tech giants' business model fascinated me. Ironically, OpenAI's model is more that of "Closed"AI since it is not an open-source program, and their secrecy and research kept them at the forefront of AI advancement; however, DeepSeek is not only more fundamentally efficient but open-source as well. Can't wait to read more into it.

    The topic of cryptography itself does not interest me, but the possible disruption that quantum computing will cause does. How would we ever move forward as a society if data and privacy can no longer remain secure on the internet and data clouds? What will companies do? Do we just move back to physical paper data? That doesn't sound feasible in this era. I have no idea. I suppose this is a whole new topic I can delve in as a personal interest. 

CSUMB Week 4 (29 Jan 2025 - 4 Feb 2025)

Part 1: Setting my Educational Goals

Some of my educational goals I hope to obtain from this program is:

• Maintain network relationship with faculty members

• Obtain a TA position

• Look for internship opportunities

• Create and participate in a capstone project 

Part 2: Setting my Goals

• Getting one of the following roles in the industry:

• Data, software, or machine learning engineer

• Preference: right now I am stuck between software and machine learning engineering. Software development offers more career flexibility and opportunities but personal interest lies in machine learning and AI. 

• Create side projects that delve into both machine learning and software development so that I can receive a better idea of what I really want.

Part 3: Taking a guess of my percentile of the ETS Computer Science test

• I feel that I can receive a score of between 70-80% if I were to take it in 18 months. I believe this way because I feel confident with topics regarding discrete structures, programming, and algorithms. The part that I feel currently weak at is systems, information management, and the “other” category that involves web computing and security. 

• Test taking is something I am comfortable with and already used to. The computer science ETS test looks very familiar to the CSET format that I’ve taken before for both chemistry and math. I’m sure with some practice and studying, I can pass the CS ETS test as well. 

Part 4: What I’ve Learned this Week

• Reading about the ETS computer science test caught my attention. There seems to be very little information about it online. Is its purpose only to assess how well a college cs program does in preparing their students? Call me a masochist but it looks like it would be a bit fun to actually take this test. 

• While writing my paper outline, a second pondering I’ve had is how little control recruiters actually have when using AI software to source candidates. Looks like algorithms tend to learn from the user’s habit and once it is set in stone, the user can’t do much to change it beyond that. Reminds me of some of the problems I’ve been having with Youtube. Looks like my algorithm only recommends the same videos over and over (which is mainly warhammer and computer science videos). If I try to manually deviate away from that by watching some other theme, it just recommends me right back to those two topics. The algorithm formed a bias of what I like and remains pretty stubborn from moving away from it.