CST438 - Module 1

What did I learn in the first week of CST438? 

When going into this course, I expected Software Engineering (CST438) to mostly go over high-level design principles, software development methodologies, team workflows, and some concepts around how to plan and manage a project, rather than just hands-on coding right away. Since this course is within the summer semester, I thought there would be more emphasis on software engineering workflows and less on building and testing a working application, since every other course in summer semesters is normally condensed.

After completing week 1, that expectation has shifted quite a bit. Instead of starting with abstract theory, the course jumped straight into practical implementation. When working through lab 1, I built two REST api's within the CustomerController for updating and deleting customer accounts, which helped me to understand some concepts about annotations, security boundaries, and data integrity rather than simply reading about it conceptually. Lab 2 on the other hand, simply went over how a SpringBoot through a webEnvironment can be implemented through tests calling the annotations from PutMapping and DeleteMapping through an interesting structure that is just like visually seeing how everything is done through the backend, which helped in understanding that everything worked, while not assuming it was correct.

In the end, my view on this course has changed, as week 1 allowed me to understand that the professor really wants us to fully learn the material and it isn't just conceptual, as it's grounded in hands-on, practical software engineering, and that the professor genuinely wants everyone to fully understand both the coding aspects, project setups, and knowledge attained through either reading or the course lectures.