Week 1:
I'm back for week one here at The University of Auburn. I'm excited on the new things that I will get to partake in throughout the summer. This week Dr. Seals and I have hit the ground right where we left off last summer.She has placed me on two important projects that I will be assisting here graduate students with. We have also had lessons about Micro:Bit and the powers it has as a small computing device. I've also had time to do personal research dealing with Computational Thinking. Through out my literature readings I have found that CT can be helpful not only to computer scientist but to the general public. It would change how everyone would operate on a daily basis.
Week 2:
In my 2nd week of my DREU experience I was able to take some time and analyze some of the code for some of the main project that Dr. Seals and her graduate students have been working on. Im excited that she has partnered me with one of her most advanced students when it comes to computer programming. I expect to soak in all the knowledge available so that way I can enhance my coding portfolio.
Week 3:
I have started working on "The Linguistics Project." This is a project that some graduate students had already started on and finished, but Dr. Seals and the client needed a 2.0 version I was tasked with doing some of the Web Development work within this project. I ran into some challenges with this project because I had to find a way to archieve courses from previous semesters.
Week 4:
Dr. Seals has had a couple of summer camps dealing with kids who are mostly in high school. I had to create a few powerpoint presentations on various topics such as; Algorithms, Computational Thinking, and Micro:bit (a small learning device). I wanted to find a way for the kids to relate to the topics that were presented to them. That way they would take interest and maybe one day use some of the techniques that were discussed in the powerpoints. We also had a team meeting this week with graduate and undergraduate students to discuss where we stood on our projects. The meeting was very informative because we got a chance to understand more about working with different people from different cultures and walks of life which is key here at Auburn.
Week 5:
In week five I had to take some time to do a lot of coding because the project was getting harder and harder but the harder things get the more I have to learn, which is exciting. I've done so many new things as it pertains to coding that I did not know about before just by researching new techniques. I have also had the time to take a look at many helpful online JavaScript courses. Wes Bos had the most informative course because he thoroughly explained everything when it came to the details of the programming language.
Week 6:
Week 6 started off by us helping Dr. Seals with a camp for young children. I was also getting ready for our presentations which were coming up at the end of the week. I realized their was a lot of work to be done but it was nothing that I have not done before. As the week went on my other fellow DREU students and I got to check out some of the presentations from the undergraduates in the kinesiology program. They did an amazing job which inspired me to go above and beyond for my presentation.
Week 7:
In week 7 I mainly focused on producing code for the linguistics project which is the project I am assigned to. I also was able to check out a GRE prep class which I feel is essential for me since I am taking interest in receiving information for graduate school. Throughout the week I also was able to meet up with Issac Akolade one of Dr. Seals graduate students who is on track to get his PhD. and our conversation that we had really aspire to pursue graduate school more than I already was at the time.
Week 8:
For some reason week 8 seemed as if it was relatively slow even though I accomplished a lot. I am near the end of my final paper and things are coming along nicely. I also am starting to design my poster which I will start on next week because we have to present with 14 other REU students from different departments across campus.
Week 9:
This week I am finishing up everything pretty much. On Monday I was able to complete the draft version of my poster that way Dr. Seals could check on it any time she stopped by during the week. I also am writing up the conclusion for my final paper which will appear of my final DREU sight. I like to make sure I look over and review the content I have on both the poster and paper because I want to provide clear and concise details on the project I was able to participate on this summer. The day before the presentations Dr. Seals made sure that we were more than prepared for our poster presentations. She did multiple "dry-runs" with us of how it would be if we were actually presenting.
Week 10
This was my final week at AU and I thoroughly enjoyed myself this summer. I learned so much that I will take back to my department and show them the endless possibilities of what the field of computer science while focusing on human computer interaction can present. This week was relatively chill and laid back because we were wrapping up our projects and other final assessments.