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, October 15, 2007
Study groups, Reflections on the first half of the new semester
Wow, I can’t believe the Elements of Software Management course is (almost) over: only a presentation left and we will all be able to take a well deserved break.
This mini has been very different from the previous classes in that there were no team deliverables: they were all individual and only at the end did we have to make decisions together.
This is very different from what we (the DM students) were used to: our first year was almost exclusively focused on teams, group dynamics and getting to ramp up an effective team. Here, the study group acted more like a support rather than a work group: we relied on each other to talk about our individual work and share knowledge, insight or review each other’s work but we still were working on our own.
The program’s structure was as follows: once a week, we would have a session with a faculty member and other study groups where we would discuss our readings. Some time later in the week our study group would meet and discuss in the presence of a faculty member (our team advisor). Finally, we would hold one more study group meeting where we would discuss and review our deliverables.
This is not a lot of meetings, and quite honestly the change of pace was a little destabilizing: we had to spend a lot more time reading and working on our deliverables than managing a common project. This structure made it somewhat hard to get to know the other people in our study group, and I don’t think we ever passed the Forming stage of team development.
However, I still learned a lot during this course. My objective for the course was to become able to assess a software business’ strategy and financials and I found a new passion: I love reading financial statements and analyzing data. That was not the case of most people in my group (far from it), and it looks many people preferred the strategy assessment part.
Overall, I think I really enjoyed this course and it was a really nice change of pace going from a purely software-development oriented year with classes on requirements, architecture… to something a lot more general that encompasses not only the critical development phase of a project but also the soundness of a business and its practices.
I need to go prepare for my presentation tomorrow (wish me luck). Next time I will talk about my first impressions with the next course: Metrics for Software Managers.
posted by Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley @ 3:33 PM
