Week 2 Journal Entry

Part 1: Review and Reflect Learning Strategy

After reading Effective Study Skills, here’s where I’m at: my strengths are blocking study time on Google Calendar and actually sticking to it, guarding a quiet study spot with my phone on Do Not Disturb, and using active recall/spaced review (flashcards + quick end-of-day run-throughs) so things stick. Weak spots: I usually skip the SQ3R setup and dive straight into reading, my notes could be cleaner and rewritten right after class, and my test approach needs polish.. doing a quick “memory dump,” setting mini time limits per question, and scanning for keywords so I don’t waste time.

Part 2: Preview Time Management Skills

Part 3: Project Management Basics

A project is just a focused, temporary push to make a specific thing real, and everything rides on balancing three levers: time, scope, and cost, so when one shifts, the others feel it. The project manager is basically the project’s CEO and hype person rolled into one: they keep everyone aligned, negotiate realistic deadlines and budgets, spot risks early, and make sure the work actually matches the goal instead of drifting. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is where the fog clears, you take the big thing and break it into concrete deliverables, then keep splitting those into smaller pieces, including interim stuff like drafts, prototypes, tests, and plans, until each chunk is small enough to estimate, assign, and track. Good WBSs do not double count anything and do not leave gaps, which people call mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, and you can add a short dictionary that explains what each piece is, what done means, and any specs or standards. Once you have those pieces, you bundle them into work packages and map out the actual activities. That is where the Gantt chart shines, time runs left to right, tasks stack top to bottom, each bar shows how long something should take, arrows show dependencies, and little diamonds mark milestones. Drop a today line on it and you can instantly see what should be done, what is late, and what can run in parallel. Put together, it is a simple flow, the WBS tells us what we are building, the Gantt shows when and in what order we will build it, and the PM keeps the moving parts synced so the plan survives contact with reality.

Part 4: Check Out Previous Capstones

OtterSoft - Type: data extraction tool for recruiters, built with Python.

Reflection: The project felt practical and well scoped. Splitting resumes into sections and training custom models showed solid use of NLP. The demo with search and filters made the value clear.
Presentation: Clean and straightforward.
Improvements: I would add a concrete accuracy number on resumes. 

A Bird’s Song - Type: A Game that tells the story of the extinct Kauaʻi ʻO'o and highlights habitat loss.
Reflection: Beautiful concept and art, and the team balanced mechanics with message. It is a nice example of using a game to teach without a lecture vibe.
Presentation: Warm and human, and the last-recording audio detail made the theme stick.
Improvements: Add a simple score or progression screen so players feel a clear arc, and include a short “learn more” link list.

DriveDiary - Type of project: a full-stack app that tracks fuel and maintenance. Was it well done? Yes. The core flows work, the graphs are useful, and they put thought into security and validation. Presentation: professional and easy to follow, with short demos of login, garage, logs, and the social tab. Improvements: email reminders feel essential, so I would prioritize that and show a sample message.

Part 5: Summarize Your Week on Your Learning Journal

I learned what a project really is. It is a temporary job with a clear goal, a deadline, and a budget. Those three things, time, scope, and cost, depend on each other. The project manager owns the result and keeps those three in balance. Some companies also have a PMO, a group that helps pick and guide projects so the right ones get done.

I picked up two core tools. A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) means breaking the big job into smaller pieces until each piece is clear and doable. A Gantt chart is a timeline with bars for each task and milestone markers so everyone can see what happens when.

The capstone demos made it real. Open Energy Dashboard showed a clean move to React and Redux and nicer admin pages. DriveDiary was a full-stack app with Spring Boot, React, and AWS that tracks car costs and uses secure email for sign-ups. Infinity Areas was a desktop tool in JavaFX that gives modders a true visual editor the community needed. Vault JS used machine learning to spot suspicious JavaScript and ran the model in AWS, which fits real team workflows. The Cedars-Sinai project used a U-Net model to find brain tumors in MRI images and measured accuracy.

Study wise, short focused sessions beat long cramming.