Joseph Nunez

SE 494 Cumulative Reflection

CR1. How do you think ISU has prepared you to:

a) Design systems or processes?

a. ISU has taken me through numerous courses aimed at designing and implementing
systems from the ground-up starting with research and moving towards UML diagrams,
Design Documents, Project plans, and ending with implementation and delivery.

b) Formulate and solve engineering problems?

a. ISU has taught me to work through the design process before approaching a solution to
engineering problems. This would include everything mentioned above, but specifically
speaking with a client. By speaking with a client, we can easily determine what needs to
be done and delivered for a project helping us formulate our plan to the solution of an
engineering problem.

c) Impact engineering solutions in a global/societal context?

a. This is the one aspect that ISU has not prepared me for, as we don’t have a class or
project of a global/societal scale/context. However, there may be a non-required class
that I simply haven’t taken.

d) Consider ethical implications of your engineering decisions?

a. The ethical implications of my engineering decisions were presented during my
Cybersecurity courses in which we covered in depth where ethical hacking ends and
where malicious hacking begins.

CR2. What things have you done at ISU to prepare you to:

a) Work in groups?
a. I believe the only thing ISU has done to prepare me to work in groups is to have
numerous group projects. I feel this hasn’t translated into the work environment for me
as I have usually been working on solo projects or with one or two other full-time
employees in which their focus is elsewhere.

b) Recognize contemporary issues?

a. ISU hasn’t really taught me how to ‘Recognize’ contemporary issues, although I’ve
experienced these somewhat in my courses in which a client or product owner suddenly
changes requirements. This question may also relate to working in groups and dealing
with poorly written assignments or maybe group members who don’t pull their weight,
however this can be solved with a quick email to the professor.

c) Understand professional and ethical responsibilities?

a. I’ve taken numerous Cybersecurity courses here at ISU as part of my Cybersecurity
minor that directly relate to the ethical responsibilities of an ethical engineer and
 hacker. Like this, through building applications and projects in 309, it’s easy to see
where my professional and ethical responsibilities as a Software Engineering student
require me to protect to the consumer and their data through safe and secure
applications.

CR3. In class projects & problem-solving tasks, did you draw upon information, research or experiences
beyond what was provided in class to successfully complete your work? Please state which resources
here and how they helped you to complete work (e.g. library resources, specific professional journals,
experts in field, other students).

- For most in-class projects, say CS 309 or CPRE 491, it wasn’t helpful to draw upon research
since most research is so pointed at one aspect of programming. However, internet
communities such as Stack Overflow provide a substantial amount of knowledge and
resources for every sort of problem you could be having. For example, I referred to Stack
Overflow to figure out an issue I was having with the Shared Preferences Manager when
creating an Android Application for CS 309.

CR4. How did learning activities outside of the classroom (required 124.5 credits), such as Student Orgs,

Career or Study Abroad Fairs, Undergraduate Research Experience (REU), or other university

programs help you to understand the importance of Lifelong Learning.

- Career fairs were the main source of my understanding for the importance of Lifelong
Learning. When I go to the career fair, I make it a habit of talking to at least 20 companies.
15 of which I research before hand and learn their location, the other 5 or so I notice while
walking from booth to booth. The one thing that relates to lifelong learning is that every
single company is looking for a different type of programmer. I could specialize in front-end,
back-end, full stack, web dev, php, python, machine learning etc. The skills we take from ISU
and from Internship or Job experience carry over from one job to the next, however, each
job is going to present a new set of skills and challenges that need to be mastered and
overcome.

CR5. Have you started to undertake any new learning to improve your ability to apply skills or
knowledge to new problems and to develop confidence in taking risks? Please explain.

- Through my internship, I’ve taken on a solo project to help aid a software integration into
my company’s software stack. Since I’m the only one on the project, I’m required to reach
out to numerous individuals from both companies to devise a plan of action, create and
implement PBIs, issue updates to the product owners, and choreograph numerous parties
into helping the integration go smoothly. This has immensely boosted my confidence in risk
taking as I know what I can and cannot accomplish on my own and I know that I Just need to
ask for help and I’ll receive it. This project has also exposed me to new technologies not
 covered in any of my classes at ISU such as dependency injection which correlates to the
lifelong learning.

CR6. In the context of the first four questions, if you were to do your undergraduate work again, what

things would you change.

- I’d focus more to get better grades and by doing so, deepen my understanding of the core
curriculum. I’d also like to be more involved in clubs such as the Game Dev club as well as
IEEE. Finally, I’d utilize the resources that ISU offers more fully especially the resource
center.