Co-op Reflections 1.2: Some Hindsight and A Little Foresight

I feel like these posts are becoming a testament to just how fast time goes by! It is already the start of the first week of classes back at Waterloo; with the academic course load returning to full swing, I thought I'd take some time to reflect on my co-op term before things get too crazy.

Looking Back
From feeling extremely overwhelmed to a nice sense of simultaneous challenge yet familiarity, I found myself immersed in many different sides of software development throughout the term. I was lucky to have started during a very busy time for the company; getting to see Dashboards transform from a true work-in-progress to a polished, commercial product was an incredible experience. While I got to work on many aspects of the application, the portion that I'm most proud of is the custom dashboard authoring experience, which I helped build from scratch; thinking back to the very beginning now, it amazes me that we pulled everything together to make it both functional and user-friendly. The responsibilities that I received gave me a more comprehensive understanding of the roles of a software developer; not only do you code, but you design your code to be effective, and test its implementation to (near) perfection. Communication with the team plays such a key role in efficiency; not only is clear communication imperative, but checking in frequently and asking lots of questions allowed me to stay up to speed with others' work. In fact, I almost wish I'd spoken up more; there is only so much that I could understand on my own; by asking more questions, I likely would've saved some time that was spent pouring over confusing parts of the code.

Throughout the term, I was able to work on both frontend and backend code, which allowed me to become familiar with the majority of our project. Through the full-stack immersion, I improved my familiarity with C#, HTML, and JavaScript, as well as even delving into a little bit of SQL. Work on a team with both a primarily backend developer and a web developer, it was really interesting for me to see how they think so differently; while the web developer focuses on user interface and intuitive user interaction across platforms, the backend developer concentrates on optimizing performance and functionality. It was really nice to be able to gain some knowledge on some of the intricacies that go into making the most out of the code.

Looking Forward

One of the things that I'm looking forward to learning more about is software design. It is one thing to write code, but another entirely different experience to design various components of a program for maximum code and performance efficiency. Up until now, we have really only been learning how to program, not so much actually making our programs. That’s why I’m really excited for our Embedded Systems course this term, where we’ve begun to go over the components of various software engineering cycles. I think technical skills by themselves can only go so far; gaining a better understanding of how to design and implement good software is an important ability that'll help tie everything together.

Furthermore, we've begun working on Android application development! I've been really excited about this because it means getting to work with Java and a new platform - I have experience creating many web applications, so it's been fun building something so new and so very different from anything I've done before. This term in itself appears to be a lot more software-oriented than 1A, which I couldn't be happier about.

I never thought that I'd have the opportunity to work in Ottawa and subsequently explore its depths, nor that I would begin my co-op experience diving headfirst into a development role. Throughout the term, I was able to improve many skills, both technical and interpersonal. Above all, I think the most valuable lesson that this co-op term taught me is that adventure is out there waiting to be found. When it comes down to it, the beauty of co-op is getting to discover the diverse opportunities that one can pursue in a particular field; I am already excited to see where I'll go next.

Co-op Reflections 1.1: The Midway Mark + What I'm Working On

It's hard to believe that this co-op term is almost halfway through; it truly feels like just yesterday when, thoughts scrambling, I spent the first day trying to understand just what I was getting myself into. I'm happy to say that it wasn't long before I was fully immersed in my project. I think what has really made this work term amazing is the fact that I am trusted just like a full-time employee, allowing me to take complete ownership of everything that I create. Before the term started, I'd imagined that, as a student, I would end up doing some small on-the-side tasks for my employer. It is one thing to just be given jobs to complete, and another completely different experience to be fully integrated into both the project and the team. I've been really lucky to get to be a part of that from the beginning and I'm really enjoying having a great deal of responsibility for the code that I write.

Speaking of what I'm working on, introducing Dashboards by Savision, a web application that gets data from Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) and displays it in an accessible and interactive fashion. Its first release is in early March! You can check out some more information about it here, or watch a quick demo below (which I helped to code!).

I am thrilled that during my time here, I'll be able to see the product launch and continue to work to improve its additional features. As this is the last week before the release, every day is a busy one and there is always a lot to get done; but being surrounded by a passionate team and getting to work on an interesting product means that even the various problems that we inevitably encounter each day can't compare to the individual and group drive to get the project ready. It's been really interesting for the past few weeks to participate in this change in dynamic as the first release wraps up; as we get closer to the day, everyone just keeps working harder towards bringing to life all that we want to achieve. The additional momentum has been fantastic; I've had a blast so far this term and I'm certain that it'll only go up from here.

Co-op Reflections 1.0: The First Week

2015 sure came in fast around the corner; before I knew it, shortly after celebrating the New Year, my suitcases were packed yet again and I set off for Ottawa.

First impressions: Left: a very snowy landing in Ottawa. Right: the colourful waterfall, one of
the first sights after arriving in the airport.

Now, over a week later, I am continually amazed by how quickly time manages to fly by. From my very first day on the job at Savision Canada, I was put right to work, figuring out how to fix the first bug we came across, and gain a better understanding of the code from the project that I'd be working on. As my manager put it that day at lunch, "you're already doing more than 95% of your classmates on co-op today," and he was right - by getting to work directly with the code as I looked it over, I began actual work on my project right from day 1, and it's only continued to go up from there. And I'm grateful for this approach; despite the initial "I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-even-looking-at" moments, I feel that by jumping right in, I've learned a lot more in a faster amount of time, simply because I had to in order to determine the issue and solve it.

Differences

The one thing they never told us about in our programming class was just how different learning programming is from applying it. Last term, we only had to worry about three or four C# classes at max, all located conveniently in one file, but my project involves flipping through interactions between countless classes and their respective interfaces, namespaces, and files. Perhaps the most significant thing that I've taken away from my first week is that you don't need to understand every part of the code to do the work; in fact, that would be nearly impossible as there are files that I haven't seen or touched yet. Instead, as I work on different tasks, I'm slowly being exposed to different aspects of the application I am working on.

At the Office
One of the most important aspects of the job is the work environment and the people that you work with. Because the Canadian branch of the company is quite small, our office is open-concept meaning everyone sits together. I didn't realize that the Canadian office only works on research and development; this is great because although everyone around me is working on different projects, they never hesitate to try and help. Generally, we work in a very quite atmosphere where everyone focuses on their own tasks, but every now and then a random conversation that's completely unrelated to work will pop up. And I can honestly say that my co-workers are all very open and friendly; it's been really nice in these past few days to hear about their variety of experiences both inside and outside of work. My manager, in particular, has been wonderful about checking in about my progress as I work, and breaking down my project into meaningful yet manageable tasks. Being able to break down the large amount of work into smaller pieces and complete them one by one has definitely helped me to not be as overwhelmed and just generally work more efficiently.


All in all, I'm happy to say that I am truly pleased with what I'm working on. I think it's safe to say that you've found the job for you when time just seems to fly by at work. Although a day doesn't go by without their own issues and challenges to overcome, it's been interesting to work through them one by one and I've been learning so much throughout the entire process. At the end of week one, it was fun to see a quantification of the progress that I'd made:

The green column indicates how many lines of code I added/changed, while the red column indicates how many lines I deleted. While it's interesting to look at to see how much I did, these numbers are trivial compared to what I have learned from the week, not only about programming itself, but the process of going about it. As I continue in my work, look out for more updates as I look forward to what's coming next.