Tomorrow is 4th class session of seven sessions (alternating Saturdays, started mid Feb.), so it’s mid term exam tomorrow, just not ready for it. Course is Software Process Mgmt, which, I know most of you would find it to be a snore, but, this semester, I have a great instructor, and he really knows how to teach – just has a ton of energy and a great teaching style (quite unlike the instructor for last yr’s Fall semester class, who let us “out” after only teaching for 1-1/2 hours even though the evening class sessions were supposed to be 3 hours long.
Anyway, I digress of course. Class itself is great since it’s teaching me how to be a project mgr, what project mgmt is all about, and teaching me everything my <mumble, mumble,=”” hack,=”” hack=””> former team lead at did wrong last year by not insisting on a project mgr for my current project – no wonder we spent 4-5 months in Customer Acceptance Test, and last two months in Production, trying to “go live” – not having a project mgr to coordinate 3-4 different software dev teams caused so many issues this past yr, now I “kinda” know what went wrong and may now have the f’ing courage to speak up when I think a project is being mismanaged (he says, hindsight being 2020).
Anyway, regarding the mid term exam, we’ve already had 2 quizzes which were a bit hard. The instructor says the mid term exam is worth 30% of our final grade. I f-ing hate tests…I just don’t see the purpose of a “no open book” exam. When you are at work, if you don’t know something (or have forgotten it), you just go to the manual to look it up. I was taught (early on in my career), you didn’t have to memorize everything, you just needed to know (I.e., memorize) which manual it’s in. Anyway, I’m loving this class but don’t think I’ll be getting an “A” (or “B”) in it. Wish me luck.
Oh, we are doing a team project in the class, five are in my team, worked with 2-3 of them last semester, it’s great getting together, and seeing how everyone else thinks, due to their own unique personal and professional experiences. Once again, I’m the oldest one (in the class and, of course, on this project team), Mark, I think is about 5 yrs younger (he’s been in 3 of the 4 courses I’ve taken so far, so we know each other very well), then, there are the two girls (sorry, but they are in their mid twenties and still a bit green behind their ears), and lastly, Greg, a mid 30’s guy who I like a lot since he’s got a great personality. Everyone is sharp and hard working, too bad the project only accounts for 15-20% (?) of the final grade.
Will let you know how the exam(s) and course project turns out, we finish mid-May.
