A Road to Remember

CS3216 has led me to roads that were previously never opened to me. Roads that I could not have reached or seen by my own. I could say that CS3216 is one of the major turning points in my life. This module has given me practical programming skills, important life lessons and improved my character.

I started out in CS3216 with zero knowledge about what it took to create an application. The only programming I had ever done was to solve trivial problems. I thought that CS3216 could help me with my future experience in NOC. It did. I managed to secure a somewhat technical job because I had learnt PHP during CS3216. I also have a much better idea in understanding how websites and applications work.

So I got what I wanted out of CS3216. Yet, it turns out that this is only a small part of the CS3216 experience.

I learned to learn...

Probably, we all have some ability in being able to learn new things independently. However, on reflection, I realise that learning is not so straightforward. Learning takes perseverance, initiative, the tenacity to stand against failures and the courage to step into the unknown, out of our comfort zone.

I found my "strengths" lacking and weaknesses glaring...

My self-perceived strengths were heavily challenged. Under the immense load and pressure, I started to struggle with things of which I thought I should be good at. It was a pretty scary feeling. I started wondering what was going on with myself and why I was experiencing so much difficulty. It turns out that part of the problem was that I was being sabotaged by my own weaknesses. This was a personal lesson in humility. My strengths were not as good as I thought them to be. Worse still, they can fail! Solution? Work harder on my strengths, patch up the weaknesses so that I can withstand greater "load testing" situations.

If you keep throwing shit on the wall, eventually, some will stick.

I like this quote very much. There's some kind of humour in it. To me, this quote is about perseverance and success. Success doesn't come easily, it requires hard work and endurance. Let's be realistic though. Don't throw shit at anti-shit-stick walls.

Sales Fixes Everything!

Quite common-sensical and easy to understand! Yet, it takes someone to point this out.

Outsourcing Also Fixes Everything!

Okay... probably not. But it does help to outsource things to improve efficiency and effectiveness as well as to cover things we're not good at.

Execution matters!

Originality is over-rated. There's hardly any idea that hasn't been thought about. It's okay to use existing ideas. What matters however is in the execution. This factor differentiates the best from the average.

Simulate Situations and Outcomes...

This is a technique that Prof Ben shared. The gist of it is to think of several solutions and then run simulations of the outcomes of each solution as a thought experiment. In this way, one gets to evaluate each solution thoroughly. Often times, I find myself being biased with just one or two solutions and forget to consider others.

Entrepreneurship

As much as Prof Ben says that this module is not about teaching entrepreneurship, I have been greatly inspired and motivated to pursue this path.

I learned to teach...

Having been a facilitator for school students in various events, I have some interest in teaching/coaching. There is immense satisfaction in knowing that one's actions has helped to change and improve the life of others. In fact, even if it's just one in a hundred, that's good enough for me, knowing that I have made a difference in someone else's life. With this thought, I surmise that Prof Ben must be a very happy man having made such a difference in so many people. =P

Watching Prof Ben in action is quite an experience. His content on living philosophy in the Last Lecture is GOLD. If I had to teach life lessons to others, I could literally lift most of the contents from there and it would probably be enough. Permission to steal borrow content Prof?

Anyway, to clarify, it's unlikely I would go into teaching. However, I do feel that there is great value in teaching. Teaching is also important in the workplace.

I learned about teaching myself...

Is this different from learning to learn? I think so. Teaching oneself involves the process of disengaging from the self and studying the self from a distant perspective. From there, observe if there's something that can be improved or worked on. I think this is probably about one of the toughest things to do ever. We always lose perspective when it comes to ourselves. This idea of teaching oneself is inspired from Yanjie. At one time, I spent hours consulting Yanjie on difficulties that I was facing and he essentially helped to "debug" the problems. He asked questions that made me question myself and this gave me a clearer understanding of the issue at hand. Then I realise, if I could learn to probe myself independently, that'll be fantastic. However, this is going to be one of the most difficult things I am going to learn. Thanks to Yanjie for giving me those hours of your time. =)

Last but not least, there are my fellow classmates. You all are a bunch of very amazing people and the kind of things that you can do serve as an inspiration and motivation for me in my learning. Many of you have helped me in more ways than one. It is my fortune to have forged my friendships with you. Thank you all!

This is it. The end of the road for CS3216. The beginning of other paths. 

Post CS3216: Life certainly seems more exciting than before.

A thought from long ago... Amazon

For a while, I've been sitting on this thought... During the talk, the issue of Amazon credits being limited was raised. Simone generously offered to sponsor Amazon credits to any groups that decided to take log of their own project and keep him updated of their progress. His request was simple, take a short video of what we were doing each week, share our progress and learning experience with him.

The reception was silent and no one took up the offer. Ashamedly, I'll say that one of the first thoughts that ran into my mind was, more work? After all, taking a video and making it look presentable seemed like a hassle and added labour. Above that, I felt uncomfortable with the idea of uploading videos of myself to the net. Worse still, what if the project was lousy and the videos only showcased how bad things were? Better not, lest we cannot deliver.

I wonder if it was a cultural thing that no one was taking up his offer. Was it the release of an online video that made people reluctant or the added work required? Or that perhaps we were too embarrassed to showcase our own work lest we deemed the work to be not good enough? I wouldn't know for others but for myself, it probably was a combination of all three. And at that very point of time, I was certainly not confident enough to say, "I'll do it!" with the ability to deliver. 

How would have the situation been different if he had given the very same offer in a different place/school? I wonder if the lukewarm response was a strange experience for him. What did he think of us then?

In any case, I also wonder if we had all missed on a golden opportunity. Several of the current final projects are ambitious with the intentions of going long term. It could have been possible that Simone would be generous enough to support any project in the long term, and perhaps even dish out useful advice or provide networks and contacts that could be extremely helpful.

Too bad, we missed it. There's a lesson to be learnt from this.