Student Blogs
MS in Software Engineering, Development Management Track Blog
Wondering if a Carnegie Mellon degree is right for you? Read about our students' experiences through the MS in Software Engineering, Development Track program.
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Linda is a first year part-time student in Carnegie Mellon's MS Software Engineering, Development Management track. She is a Software Developer at Electronic Arts in Redwood Shores, CA. She likes to dance and sing and her favorite videogame is The Beatles RockBand. She enjoys Indian, Japanese, Thai, Italian and Mexican food. She comes from Mexico City, and has being living in CA for the past two years.
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Pras Sarkar is a second-year part-time student in the MS Software Engineering Development Management track. He works in Yahoo! Labs. His responsibilities include materializing ideas and concepts into engaging prototypes and demos, some of which ultimately mature into products that Yahoo! visitors use everyday. He is interested in emerging web technologies, social interaction over digital mediums, and creative interfaces that push the boundaries of human computer interaction.
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Vineet is a Lead Developer at Boeing and a second year grad student in the part-time MS Software Engineering, Development Management program. He loves reading, playing with his daughter and pursuing the religious aspect of his life. He is an active volunteer of Vedic Cultural Center, a Seattle-based organization dedicated to promote the Vedic (ancient Indian) arts, culture, music and dance. |
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Truc is a second year part-time student in Carnegie Mellon's MS Software Engineering, Development Management track. She is a Software Engineer at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, CA. She loves food and enjoys anything related to food: going to different restaurants, cooking, watching the Food Network, and of course, eating! |
Monday, June 4, 2007
Being a remote student at Carnegie Mellon West
For this blog entry, I will write about something a lot of people I talk to ask me about: How can you be a student at Carnegie Mellon and live so far from there.
My response is usually twofold. First of all, I attend classes at Carnegie Mellon West, which is Mountain View, CA and not in Pittsburgh, PA.
Second, I am a remote student, which means I don’t go to campus every day or even every week. So far, I have gone to campus a handful of times (I used to live in Sacramento and could justify the 2-hour drive), only 2 of which were mandatory.
Now, if I don’t go to campus and I don’t even have real lectures, is that even a real degree? The answer is YES, it is. It’s challenging, interesting and so far I have learned a lot of no-nonsense software engineering principles and ideas.
The truth of the matter is, I don’t think I could be a remote student and sit in a “virtual conference” with a teacher lecturing and me listening. I mean, when you are in person at least you have peer pressure to keep you coming and staying in class quietly. In CMU West’s case we have better than that: interesting courses and assignments.
Being remote, I have never been on a truly local team, but I have been on mixed teams, and have had to work with local teams. And it seems like the experience local and remote teams are having are very different. Local teams will try to meet in person at least once or twice a week, and when they do they will usually spend a LOT of time together. I have heard some teams work for 5 or 6 hours straight over the weekends, but of course, when you’re meeting together in person, you tend to do more goofing around and hanging out mixed in with the actual schoolwork.
Remote teams on the other hand tend to meet more often (usually 4-5 times a week) but for shorter amounts of time (we usually limit our meetings to 30 minutes to an hour). This means we also want to make the most of our time when we meet: we always want to come prepared to our meetings, have done our readings and we are coming to make decisions or split up work. Don’t get me wrong, we debate and argue but only those points that make sense and we always try to stay on topic.
Most of the time, the whole team is not working on the all the deliverables but tasks are assigned to smaller groups (usually 2 to 3 people), and when that happens we try to find a schedule that works for all of us. I also really enjoy having to work more closely with people as I get to know them a little more personally: we can usually spend a few minutes talking about our personal lives and what’s going on at work.
I also enjoy being able to work (mostly) whenever I want and not having to follow somebody else’s work routine (I usually do school work in the morning before going to work, unlike many people who prefer to stay up at night).
If being remote is so great am I missing anything not being local? Well, for one I feel like I am missing mostly on the social aspect of school: we all try to put our pictures up on IM and on our student wiki pages, and after a while we can all recognize each other’s voices. And usually by the end of the semester I feel like I know my teammates fairly well. However, I don’t know many other people outside my team: I miss on most (if not all) of the meeting events that are organized outside of the coursework.
For example, we have a monthly presentation where some students talk about a Software Engineering subject of their choice. Attendance is mandatory for everybody, but by attending virtually, I miss out on the opportunity to share pizza with and talk with other students.
Overall, I think being remote is an opportunity: I can work out my schedule the way I want, still have a social and a family life (I have a 5 and a 1 year old) and get a higher-grade education at the same time. What else could I ask for? Maybe some rest, but I knew those 2 years of school were going to be a pretty big commitment – however I think in the end it will be worth it.
Next time: I will talk about what has been going on in the architecture class so far and cross-team communication.
posted by Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley @ 11:35 AM
3 Comments:
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Thank you for sharing your experiences as a first year student in this program, Rom! It helped me to feel more comfortable as an potential applicant to know that the remote learners are keeping in stride with the on-campus students.
Your cross-team remote communication experiences during the program will no doubt be very valuable to you in future, if they haven't been already. I work with people in Malaysia, India and the US east coast, and it helps to know how to schedule meetings and keep things prepared while staying flexible to accomodate for globally dispersed teams and their schedules. This experience may be something that on-campus students may not get. I guess that's probably the flip side to not being able to participate in class discussions :).
Hi Shannon, it's true that we get very different experiences between remote and local people.
This usually means I have to try to apply some of the things I learn in school directly at work and in my personal life.
Learning to work with remote teams is an asset I think is going to be needed more and more in our globalized workplace.
I think this part of world including India, Bangaldesh, Pakistan and Iran will soon need a tuition based on the concept of remote campus. I studied the social issues relating to tuition and I am more convinced that contents delivery in shape of stored lectures are needed by tuition centers. Can anyone help me on the contents.