Week 6 Learning Journal

 Part 1: Help Your Teammates to Develop Capstone Ideas

In our team chat, Jael pitched a compelling idea: a hyper-local marketplace to help small merchants and especially street-food vendors get visibility and connect with nearby customers—“like Facebook Marketplace, but for tiny food businesses.” The pain point is clear (discoverability, long drives to find specific cuisines), and the users are equally clear (roving vendors and hungry locals). I shared that this could be a solid capstone if we narrow the MVP: vendor sign-up + simple verification, a map/list of nearby stalls, real-time “open now / sold out” status, and lightweight reviews with photos. From a CS perspective, it touches mobile dev, geolocation, notifications, and a small recommender (“show me X within Y miles”). We also noted risks: safety/permits and vendor authenticity, spam moderation, and the cold-start problem. To de-risk, I suggested focusing on one neighborhood, partnering with a few vendors to seed content, and using community moderators. Longer-term ideas include push alerts for pop-ups, basic analytics for vendors, and bilingual support. What stood out most is the combination of social impact (supporting micro-entrepreneurs) and clear technical scope, enough depth to demonstrate full-stack skills without boiling the ocean.

Part 2: Keep Up With Your Learning Journal

This week sharpened my career toolkit and moved our capstone forward. From the CSUMB Career Development guide, I pulled three upgrades: tailor my resume/cover letter to each role using the job’s keywords and quantified impact; keep a living “STAR bank” of bullets to speed interviews; and follow a weekly outreach cadence (one new contact, one follow-up, one thank-you). I also tightened my technical-interview routine: restate the problem, sketch a rich example, offer a brute-force baseline, analyze Big-O, then code cleanly and test small first. I put this into practice while exploring opportunities: I attended HP’s virtual internship overview to understand timelines, projects, and recruiter expectations (I’m targeting their summer program), and I joined a fireside chat with Myriad Genetics to network and learn how software, data pipelines, and compliance shape their work.