Throughout this semester as a class, we worked on a number a project, such as a resume and cover letters, a technical interview, lab report, technical description, and technical proposal project. The resume and cover letter involved improving my resume based on the outline of what a resume consists of and writing a good cover letter based on an outline that he provided in class. The technical interview was the first project which involved interviewing someone with a job similar to our respected major, then we wrote a paper on it based on the outline that he provided. I had to provide a lab report based on a simple experiment, that requirement rolling two dies 100 times. The proposal project was a group project where the group members had to pick an area in the school that needed to improve and write a proposal on. The last and my favorite assignment was the technical description which meant that I could pick an atopic based on my major that interests me and write a brief description based on the topic.
The first assignment that was assigned was the interview report because we needed time to find someone to help users conduct the interview. I had to come up with the questions that I wanted to ask my interviewee and then find someone with a career that I would plan on doing in the future. I chose to do my assignment on my old high school robotics teacher Ms. Ali at Midwood High School in Brooklyn. I chose Ms. Ali because I have considered teaching high school robotics only after taking her class. Her class is one of the reasons I chose to study computer science; besides it just being very interesting to me. When I had her she made learning very enjoyable, her challenges were very interactive and collaborative. I conducted the interview at Midwood high school, it was about 20 to 30 minutes and after I asked my questions, I stayed back to help some of the students with their assignments. It was really great to come back; being a teacher is a profession that I would really consider doing in the future; it is in my top 3.
The second assignment that was done was the resume and cover letter. This assignment was assigned during the same time as the interview report, but it was to be handed in before the interview assignment. For this assignment, we had to formulate a proper resume and cover letter. As I already have a resume, a changed a handful of things and then handed that in. but for the cover letter, it was different because you had to write about yourself personally; I had to write why I was great for this job using strong adjectives to describe myself. Writing about myself personally is not an easy thing to do, and a struggled a lot with it. I didn’t do very well on this assignment because I didn’t know how to write about myself even with an outline. This assignment was one I personally didn’t too well on. But it is something I am trying to improve on, mostly because I am applying to a couple of jobs that require a cover letter. Also, for this assignment, I had to pick a possible job or internship that I would like to apply to. I found one on indeed that was really interesting to me. It was an incident response and red team internship
The lab report was right after. To do the lab report I had Ito roll two die a hundred times and then record it. I had to do research and find a study on dice probability which I found off the ccny library database. I used paper titles “Under and Overs”, written by Sandra Hanson McPherson of Millersville University in Pennsylvania. This study uses the game Unders and Overs to teach kids probability by having the students place bets on the likelihood that the die will roll a certain product. I used that and made an adaptation where I felt that it would be improved on by having more chips to place the bets, limiting the rounds and changing of the dealer so people get different turns. I found that this project was a bit confusing mostly because I didn’t know where to start, so I had to ask people in the class but after I figured it out it came together quite nicely.
Picking a team for my proposal presentation project was simple. I am a very open and talkative person; I don’t mind talking to people at all unless I have to give a presentation. But when I chose this group I just went up and started talking to people. The idea that we picked was straight to the point, I think we that in our second meeting of each other and assigning the role. Then after that, it was research, which wasn’t easy; since I have the budget finding the revenue and then calculating the budget requires a lot of math, especially when calculating the revenue, the time span, and the profit increases.
The technical description paper was the last assignment and it was my favorite. I got to pick a topic that piques my interest and write a description that is two pages on. The topic I picked based on my computer science major was the dark web. The dark web is the epicenter of criminal activity. The dark web which is a subset of the deep web is a term used to describe the legal and illegal activity that happens on the internet. It is a collection of websites on an encrypted network, that cannot be found on traditional websites or browsers. The dark web sells anything illegal that you cannot get in stores or on traditional browsers using cryptocurrency transactions like bitcoin, users can purchase credit card numbers, drugs, guns, counterfeit money, stolen subscription credentials, and more. The project for me was the easiest to do because I really enjoyed that topic.
For most of the projects excluding the resume and cover letter, and lab report there was a presentation that went along with it. I am personally not very fond of presentations. I find them to be very hard to do, mostly because I have a fear of speaking in front of random people. The first presentation where I had to do a presentation was the interview report. I was not comfortable with my classmates in this class, so having to talk to people I didn’t know was very uncomfortable; so. The presentation to me was not conducted well the second presentation was the group proposal project. The hated the presentation for the lab report but not because the presentation was bad, I just do not like giving presentations. I wish I went the first day, so I could get it over with. Because I went the last day, I was carrying that anxiety for days. But I’m really glad it is over, and I did not forget anything. The last one was the technical description, that one wasn’t so bad. I think because I was used to the people in the class by then I didn’t have such a hard time. In fact, I knew the topic so well that I was nervous. In the end
The writing for engineers’ class as a whole was very interesting. I’ve never really had a class like this one, most of the assignments that we had was very enjoyable. We were given the option to do reports on topics that were interesting to us. When doing a report, it’s important because I know that I would be able to finish that assignment and when doing research know that because a topic is so interesting that I would look beyond the research given and look in depth into that topic. When I did my report on the dark web, I was so completely fascinated with the topic that I spent days looking up information about it and that is important in a learning environment. One of the best classes I had had this semester. A++++.
