What did you do this past week?

This last week we expanded on how to use an iterator class we previosuly created inside of another class called Range. Later on in the week we had a speaker, Conrad Stoll, come and give us a presentation on several important concepts we'll be seeing day to day in our future professional lives. We ended the week by having our first exam in OOP which was formatted similarly to our quizzes. Several of my friends warned me that I should be expecting several coding questions, however instead we had a multiple choice exam which I found refreshing after spending the afternoon rewriting every function we discussed in class.

What's in your way?

As of now the only thing in my way is to dedicate some of my time to getting started early on the project as I have been doing. It can never hurt to get started early, and I love keeping it as a habit as it keeps every day stress free for me. Also, I plan on reworking my studying strategy for this class now that I know that the exams will be similar to the quizzes.

What will you do next week?

This upcoming week presumably we will go into several lectures that begin to expand on elements of C++ that will allow us to more effectively build classes. We also have the next paper to read, titled The Interface Segregation Principle. Lastly we'll be finding out about Project #3 this week which we'll have spring break to work on. Even though its not my part of my ideal spring break, I definitely won't mind the extra time to work on it.

What's my experience of the class?

I feel that it's worth mentioning that one if the ways Professor Downing helps to make his class engaging is his presentation of use cases. After each concept he describes he'll provide a use case detailing how we can apply it to our work and how it is used frequently. It not only proves useful, but also makes it much easier to remember.

What's my pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My pick-of-the-week this week is this great article that has the links to 370 free computer science related courses. It always helps to get a leg up in future classes by learning a bit about the subject before you get a grade in it! I recommend taking a look at some the material beforehand with a resource like this.