Going into Spring 2022 as my second to last semester, I had gotten most of my credits and all I needed were upper division credits. When looking for ICS 400+ electives on STAR, this was one of the few classes that stood out to me, mainly because it was regarded as an easy A. The class was described as a continuation of 314, which was another class that I enjoyed. It was one of the few classes where the instructor’s infectious enthusiasm pushed me to grow to enjoy the content of the course. Revisiting things like Meteor and React was something that I was looking forward to since I enjoyed recreating websites and their components before, but I knew it needed to take time.
Having the structure of the class explained by the professor of the course, Cam Moore, the class seemed more fun than it did initially. ICS 414 would essentially be a semester-long version of the final project for 314 where we collaborate with others to create a website, but instead of a website for a service for the university, it would be a website for a customer’s vision of what they want their website to look like. Professor Moore reassured my thoughts by saying that the class was indeed an easy A, but having our website be judged by the customers seemed even heavier than a grade. More than an easy A, hearing that an internship might be up for grabs for teams that do well seemed to be a much better incentive for creating a polished product.
About 2 days after forming teams within the class, we got into a zoom call with the customers, Scott, Nancy, and Malindi, where they introduced themselves and their vision for the website. They were very nice and a pleasure to work with. Throughout the semester we had a couple of meetings with them to check on the progress of our websites. Generally, the feedback was positive and there were rarely any instances where they heavily opposed something like a page, component, etc. If I could wish for anything, I would have wanted them to be a bit more specific with their requests, but flexibility and need for imagination was part of the challenge, and making it more specific would make the project no different than a homework assignment.
From experience in the final project of ICS 314, working with others was a really fun experience. Making and delegating issues, pushing and pulling commits: the whole process was enjoyable. The team making process was not as clean as it should have been since people dropped out of the course, causing teams to be unbalanced. My final team consisted of Marcos, Matthew, Jonathan, Kristian, and Isaiah. My first impression of all of them was that they seemed pretty laid-back, but quickly after starting on the project, I came to learn that they were a lot more serious than they seemed. Because of that, I wanted to put in as much work as I could for this course.
Earlier on, when classes were still online and not moved to on-campus, Isaiah had established a leadership role by making sure we met up as a team after class to discuss the project. Whether it be 10 minutes or 1 hour, he always made time to talk about how we were going to go about this, the workload each of us would take, etc. Even before it was suggested, Isaiah had suggested 3 levels of users: Volunteer, Organization, and Admin. With the 6 of us, 2 on each level of user, the road ahead of us was made clear.
The team was well organized: Marcos and Kristian on User, me and Jonathan on Organization, Isaiah and Matthew on Admin. It was going well for a couple of weeks; everyone was attending class, on the same page, and getting work done. Then things started slowing down, in terms of both workflow and communication. My motivation drastically dropped, not for this class in particular but for the whole semester, because, to make two long stories short, I was ill and in the worst condition of my life, and had to pay $1.1k out of pocket due to an advisor and updated policies. I tried to not let that affect my work output, not only in this class but others as well, and did as much as I could. As a group, we started to pick things back up, started to attend class as a group more frequently, and started to discuss what lay ahead of us. Overall, I think Isaiah was a great leader earlier on while Marcos and Kristian carried the group in the later stages.
This class really was interesting. I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than 314. It had the fun of collaborating with a team combined with the real world aspect of working with a customer. Much more than 314, I had learned the process of working with a team, drawing out a plan, delegating work, and executing it.