What have I been up to this Semester?

This semester I’ve studied three modules: Programming 2, Sustainable Computing and Software Engineering and Human Computer Interaction.

In Programming 2, I’ve worked on creating a local management application for a hair salon in C# which allows customers and stylists to register (and are validated before) joining the company, book chairs on available days and book appointments in available slots too. The system manages appointments to ensure conflicts can’t happen, adjusting available appointments slots based off the length of previous appointments. You can read more about this here.

In Sustainable Computing, we were tasked with creating something interactive to promote a topic that we were interested in, after surveying friends, family and other non-computer scientist students we decided to focus on Cybersecurity and good online practices. For this I worked with a teammate to collaborate on a a node.js project using Git, the project used the HaveIBeenPwned API and How Secure is My Password to help people assess their online security. We also served them a certificate to print after they completed their training. Want to know more about this on this project? Read here!

In Software Engineering and HCI, we learned about algorithmic efficiency and how do develop the most effective algorithm, and refine it over different iterations. We also worked on the human understanding of design to ensure that what we designed matched what the user actually wanted, and not what they’re told they want. We also covered design planning and how to effectively plan software development and the different models of development, building on the training that I did with QA on effective software design and testing in January.

Working in the SIS Team, I’ve been testing the Clearing and Fees, Funds and Finance strands of development. I’ve been working since January testing independently from home through JIRA, but lately I’ve been working in the office allowing me to get more familiar with the team. You can read more about this in a post I’ve wrote here.

I’ve got a backlog of posts I’ve been working on, from visiting Sensor City in Liverpool in March to learn about Liverpool City Region 4.0 (LCR4.0) and the work they’ve been doing to make Liverpool a smart city, as well as meeting HullDevs to learn about the potentials for JavaScript which I’m hoping to get published after the end of exams next week!