Computer Science BS Journal: Week 5

Post Interview Reflection Report

1. Introduction: Who you interview and why. The expert’s name, title, and organization. A brief background on why you selected this person.
1. I interviewed Joshua Brackett, he's been a close friend of mine for going on 8 years and he works in the same industry I'm looking to transition into. Joshua is a Customer Success Engineer working at Zipline. I decided to interview Joshua because as I mentioned, he's a close friend of mine and I felt it would be a more meaningful interview asking him directly. During the interview I felt like the information and tips I was getting was directed at me and not just a broad overview of his industry/job.
2. Summary: Key takeaways from the conversation (e.g., career advice, insights into industry trends, technical challenges).
1. Some key takeaways I got from the conversation was that a) your portfolio means a lot when you're looking for a job, technical knowledge is important for the interview process but they are more interested in what you can build, so fill your portfolio up with projects. And b) You don't exactly need to do schooling to land a good job and be successful in the software engineer field. It takes a lot of personal motivation and drive to be sure you learn and study a spectrum of coding languages. Look into industry trends so that you can study what sets you apart from the competition. In his case, he chose to study/learn Ruby because the job market for ruby was typically 10-50 applicants compared to 300 plus.
3. Reflection: How this experience influenced your understanding of career options and the industry.
1. This interview refreshed my knowledge that there is a big importance on self discipline and projects. Self discipline in that sense that schooling can't teach us every language well enough for us to know them all professionally. We need to study and perfect our skills on our own and research into what can set you apart from the rest of the competition. Projects are a key item in displaying what you're capable of, showing how you code and the results are a great way of showing potential employers that you can produce good results on your own.
4. Future Steps: How do you plan to apply this knowledge to your academic or professional journey?
1. I have always taken Joshua's advice to heart, this interview has reminded me to stay vigilant and to keep pressing on. The way I'll apply what he has reiterated to me today is by researching what sort of skills can set me apart from others so that when I begin to transition into the software engineering industry I'll have an edge.

Part One: Support and Comment on Teammates' Goals

 https://vladscsjourney.blogspot.com/2025/01/week-4.html?sc=1739190818004#c2857691812590990097

https://nlao-cs-journey.blogspot.com/2025/02/cst-module-4-january-29th-february-4th.html?sc=1739191907117#c4541745751821088248

Part Two: Possible Capstone Ideas

After viewing some of the capstone presentations and getting some ideas of what I might want to do, the three possible capstones I've come up with are: 

•  A redactions program, in which the program reads a properly formatted document and redacts sensitive/confidential information within seconds, as well as providing a summary of what's to be redacted prior to finalization. 
• A video game, This is just something I've always wanted to do since I was young. So I think that if I'll ever be able to accomplish a working game, it will be through this class and the skills I've gained from CSUMB.
• A detailed business page for resellers, This is also a somewhat personal project I want to accomplish. A side gig of my girlfriend and I is reselling, so making a storefront online would be awesome and might elevate our business to the next level.

Part Three: Keep Up With Your Learning Journal

This weeks assignments were pretty lax, thankfully. I've had some things going on that have been taking up a lot of my time which has made getting my assignments done a hassle. In our lecture this week we learned more about stakeholders and AI, and ways we could use AI to help with our stakeholder analysis. We also got introduced to our capstone project as well as viewed some past projects. We also covered the 5 types of claims which are claims of fact, definition, cause, value and policy. I'm almost finished with my essay after working on the stakeholder analysis assignment so I'm excited to have that finished and out of the way. Hopefully the weeks to come are just as relaxing as this week.