Reflection on my 7 habits

Ah, assignments. This one is about the 7 habits from the book Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. The instructions are as follows:

Include a reflection of the 7 habits; do you think they are important for you as a students? Why? Which of the 7 habits that you already have? Which you don't?

Again, those seven habits are:

1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think win-win
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw (upgrade your physical, mental, social, and spiritual health)

I think those habits are useful for everybody, student and professional alike. The first three are important for personal success. For example, there are many helpful programs in college, but they don't seek out students. Students need to be proactive and seek them out. For college students, beginning with the end in mind is the best way to take classes. I know several friends who take the classes they feel like taking, without any regard for what their overall college education will look like. That's the end, the goal of college - to be educated. How educated do 50 easy classes make a person? Not very educated at all.

The second three habits (#4-7) are important for group projects. In group projects, students need to work together to make sure everybody gets a good grade, and more importantly to make sure everybody learns from doing the project. If one person does it all, the entire group might get a good grade, but they wouldn't learn. That's the purpose of group projects. That's what "winning" means in the context of a group project.

Understanding others is also very important to group projects; both when listening to other people's presentations, and when presenting your own; you need to know the material before you can tell others about it. The last of these habits, synergizing is a very important part of being in a group.

The last habit, sharpening the saw, is perhaps the most important one for students. We're here to learn about our field of choice, but extraneous knowledge matters a lot in life. If we don't know basic things about geography, history, health, etc, we won't get far in life.

No Class, Nov 22

Today was Thanksgiving, and we got the entire week off.

Class Summary, Nov 15

Today we didn't have any speakers. Rather, we learned all about Capstones. I've been hearing about them since I came here, but they were never clearly defined. Until now. A Capstone presentation is basically the final presentation before you graduate. It's more about the preparation than the final presentation, so as long as you did the work you should do alright, grade-wise. Capstones are cool because everybody does a different one, so there are all these big projects you can look at. It demonstrates to me that CSUMB students can really produce something.

Well, that's what it demonstrates in general, but it means more than that to me because I like looking at other people's projects, and since everybody does a Capstone there are tons of projects that are all different, all student-chosen. Fun stuff to look through if I ever have a lot of spare time.

The presentations are usually done in the classroom for this class, building 18, room 118. They're also broadcast to a monitor outside, and furthermore they're recorded and stored for 5 years. We can request a copy of 'em too. These things are official.

They're usually PowerPoint presentations, and usually about 10 slides long. Some people do other formats, but that's the norm. The standard Capstone presentation engages the audience, describes a problem, describes some potential solutions, states the chosen solution and why it was chosen, and shows how well it has worked. As usual for presentations, the audience can ask questions at the end. This means that the Capstone projects have to solve a problem. They also need to use sophisticated technology and/or design, and involve a community partner or a client. The intent here is to use our technology to solve problems in the community.

Heh. Salinas/Marina/Monterey must love CSUMB. There are all these helpful projects, done by CSUMB students, for free.

Anyway, Capstones have three classes dedicated to them: CST 400 (choosing a Capstone), CST 401 (doing that Capstone), and CST 496 (working with your Capstone advisor). CST 400 and 496 are taken one semester, then 401 and 496 the next semester. Yes, that means taking CST 496 twice; it ensures your advisor is involved in the entire process.

There are lots of potential Capstones, but there are some requirements. As stated before, a Capstone needs to:

1. Solve a problem
2. Use sophisticated technology and/or design
3. Involve a community partner or a client

A Capstone itself requires:

1. Complexity (it can't be too easy)
2. Integration of technology and design
3. Technology/design excellence (this is a professional project)
4. Client/community involvement
5. Project management

Another important thing is that since a community partner is involved, the Capstone needs to be able to be finished if that partner bails from the project. Thus Capstones are usually things developing everything required to set up a database of <something>, rather than actually setting it up. Setting it up would be very easy from the finished Capstone, but it would require buying the computers and software necessary. That part is up to the community partner, and if they choose not to do it the student can still complete his/her Capstone.

Class Summary, Nov 8

This week we only had one speaker: Reagan Pollack of WorldMusicLink. He was more of a businessman than most other people we've had, and he had some good advice for people planning to start a business. He recommends we use our class mates for feedback, since it's free and they're always going to be there to help. He also recommends we know a little bit about everything, so we can follow along wherever we are. Apparently a lot of the things he's used haven't been the main things taught in CST classes - his extraneous knowledge has come in handy. A phrase he likes is "think digitally, act analogically". This means we should think through all the possibilities, but only take small steps. I guess it's similar to the phrase "tread lightly".

Reagan and our instructor both mentioned the Marina Technology Center, which is a group in Marina that gives startup funds and space to new companies. If I was starting a company, that would be very useful.

We spent a fair amount of time talking about the book Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Those seven habits are:

1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think win-win
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw (upgrade your physical, mental, social, and spiritual health)

1-3 help you succeed by yourself; 4-6 help you succeed when working with other people, and #7 helps balance them all out and keep them going.

The assignment for this week includes a few more things (besides the weekly reflection). The first is to establish our big goals in life. I'd say my biggest goal is to get a secure job in the computer industry. I don't really care what part of the industry I'm in - I do have a specific area in mind, but if my career happened to veer off in another computer-oriented direction, that would be fine. There are other "big goals" in my life, of course, but I'd say a good career is the most important one to me right now.

The second other thing is to plan toward our futures. Ha! That's what the ILPs are for; that's what this class is all about. As Berj of the EOP office says, I've got my plans pretty well laid out. All I have to do is follow them. I haven't secured a position for after I graduate, but I think it would be silly to do so now, since I've got about two years of college left. The industry will change by that time. How much more planning could I possibly do?

The third thing to do is to sharpen our saws - to find a way to improve our physical, mental, social, and/or spiritual health. I think I'm improving on several of those fronts. My social health is definitely improving, mostly thanks to living on-campus for the first time. All this semester I've been meeting people and meeting opportunities. I plan to continue to do that in the upcoming semesters. The more I sharpen this saw, the better I'll get at sharpening it. I am sharpening other teeth of the metaphorical saw, but those are more personal things, and this is enough writing for one blog post.

Class Summary, Nov 1

This week we had two guests: Virgil Swamp, from the IT department of the City of Monterey, and Ed Cho, from the design firm Hanna Group. Virgil was a laid back guy who always looked at the big picture. Lately technology has gotten a lot cheaper, and skilled workers have gotten a lot more expensive. Thus the best way to save money is to use a lot of technology and very few workers. If something can be automated, automate it. It may cost something for a programmer to write the code to do it, but once it's done you won't need people to do that task, and technology is always cheaper than workers (these days). Virgil learned this when he was in the arctic working for oil companies. It's especially true there; anything a worker needs has to be flown in. Computers can be put on a task and left to complete it.

Virgil talked a bit about data centers. They seem to be the way large companies are going. A company can put together several data centers, and it'll still be able to function if one of them goes down. A data center needs cheap power, good cooling systems, and accessibility. Without cheap power all the computers will be a lot more expensive to run. Without good cooling, they won't last nearly as long. They also need both physical accessibility to replace parts, and digital accessibility to keep the software working.

Virgil also talked briefly about the internet boom. He described it as "incredible". In 1995, there were 75 websites. Total! There are over 150 million now, and that number is growing every day. The internet doesn't take weekends off.

The other speaker for today was Ed Cho. He was born in Korea, and he's traveled around a fair amount, both physically and in terms of his major. He graduated from Monterey High, then went to Cal Poly and majored in programming. He got burnt out after 3.5 years. He took some business classes to relax a bit, and found he liked business better. He transferred to San Jose State for a business degree, but ended up getting a publication/design degree instead. He worked for a few years, then opened his own printing house. After awhile, he expanded into design as well. He figured he only had one more step to go to be a full service business - marketing - so he expanded into that too.

Ed told us that local people may cost more than overseas workers, but they're worth it because they can respond quickly. It might take a few days to get an overseas designer to change an element of a product, but a local guy can do it and email it back in a few hours, or a day at most.

Ed also advised us to check out fashion magazines to see what colors work lately. Our own color choices shouldn't be the deciding factor - go with what's popular.

Ed shared a story about one student he hired. The student's work screamed "Hire me!" - literally - so he did. We shouldn't be afraid to tell employers that they should give us a chance, that we can prove ourselves worth hiring. We just need to be prepared to live up to this. If an employer hires you and you suck at your job, you're going to get fired. Relatively easy in, relatively easy out.