Mara Sheena Saquilayan

This week was exam week, also known as our “hell week” T^T. Other subjects had their PITs deadlines at the same time, so we had to juggle studying and completing our performance tasks. Thankfully, we managed to finish everything in time.

For our system, I only worked on a few parts on the backend (like My Account, Transaction History, and Other Category pages) since I’m not very confident with backend programming. I’m a bit slow when it comes to the functional parts, but yaaayyy—I was so happy when I managed to make some pages functional! That little accomplishment truly made my heart skip a beat with happiness. Since my contribution to backend coding was small, I took the initiative to work on the paper alongside Mariel and Rain (Raz).

It was such a stressful week that even my birthday on December 20 didn’t feel exciting because we were all so focused on finishing the paper to be ready for our presentation to Sir Carl.

BUT AFTER THIS VERY STRESSFUL WEEK, OUR SYSTEM AND PAPER ARE FINALLY DONE!!! YAAYYYY!!! All the hard work of our team paid off. Thank you so much, Sir Carl, for making our journey less stressful, especially when you announced that we were all exempted from the exams—huhu, such a relief!

And with that, our SDE journey has come to an end. 안녕 👋🏻

It was a tiring day because we had a 7:30 AM advanced exam for our DDC course. After the exam, my classmates were busy studying, I think? I can’t fully remember. Feeling pressured because everyone seemed to be reviewing, I tried reading Topic 8 and 9, which was the focus of the quiz we were about to take. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand much because I was so sleepy. I managed to answer some of the questions, but I’m not sure if they were correct since I mostly relied on my gut feeling T^T.

After the quiz, we had our final group activity since this was the last day of our SDE class. :( We also took a class picture, and after that, we were officially dismissed.

This subject was a rollercoaster ride, but I’m thankful that we all survived!

We had a three-day wellness week during Week 14, but honestly, I don’t really remember what I did since I didn’t take any pictures to document those days.

In Week 15, we discussed Data Mining. Unfortunately, I struggled to stay focused on Sir Carl’s lecture because I was fighting the urge to close my eyes and sleep huhu. Sir Carl can easily spot anyone who isn’t paying attention, so instead of dozing off, I decided to take a picture of our cute essential oils, which have become a part of our daily liiiiife.

After the discussion, we were grouped for an activity. This time, it was about how Target uses data mining for their marketing strategies. It was an interesting and practical application of what we learned.

Before starting the discussion, we had a short seatwork related to Topic 7, which is Application Programming Interface (API). After the seatwork, Sir Carl discussed APIs in detail, which was the focus of the seatwork. Honestly, I can’t fully remember if I answered it correctly—huhu.

After the discussion, we were grouped for an activity. Our group was assigned the "Patient API Simulation: Securely Accessing Medical Records." We worked together to complete it, and Princess and I were tasked with writing our answers on the paper that Sir Carl provided.

That's a wrap for Week 13! See you in Weeks 14 and 15!

For Week 11 (November 7, 2024), we only had an asynchronous class since our instructor, Sir Carl, posted an activity on USTeP related to the system we were creating—the User Manual. However, we were unable to complete this activity because we had not yet finished the system we were working on.

For Week 12 (November 14, 2024), we had a short seatwork on Software Reliability and Quality Management. After completing the seatwork, we discussed software quality management and the 5 S's that Sir Carl often emphasizes: Sort, Set, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. He reminded us that we should practice the 5 S's at the end of every class. Since that discussion, we’ve made it a habit to cheerfully shout the "5 S's GUYS!" after every class, which has been quite fun!

My seatmates were struggling to stay awake during the class, and I had to fight the urge to close my eyes too. Thankfully, I managed to stay awake. We were also grouped for another activity related to the topics discussed.

That's all for Weeks 11 and 12—adios!

This week, we dedicated time to continue our system project, as we needed to present it for our performance innovative task (PIT) for midterms. Initially, we were worried, thinking we might not score well since our progress didn’t seem to meet the 70% requirement for the PIT.

But we pulled through and made it! Yay, great job, team! (˶ˆᗜˆ˵)

These past weeks have been reeeeallyyyy exhausting. I didn’t even get a chance to take any photos with my friends because we were all so busy studying for exams. In week 9, we took our general education subject exams, which weren’t too hard but weren’t exactly easy either—I’m just glad they’re over!

Week 10 felt like a hell week, with exams for our major subjects. We spent endless hours trying to cover everything and remember all the details since the fear of failing was real for all of us. T^T

Quiz 2 took place today, and I went in thinking I’d perform better than on the first quiz. Unfortunately, as soon as it started, everything I’d studied just vanished from my mind—it was so frustrating (this brain of mine can be useless sometimes T^T).

Since we weren’t allowed to use our phones during the quiz, I couldn’t take any photos then. So here’s a photo of us after the quiz.

In our 7th week, Engr. Suasola announced that we’d be having asynchronous classes to focus on working on our system project. He mentioned he would also upload Activity 2, which involves system testing (a task we haven’t yet completed).

Later, around 3 p.m., my friend Rain and I went to school for the College of Engineering and Architecture general assembly. The event was enjoyable, especially when one of our classmates danced in front of everyone—such a fun moment! Izelle also sang Sarah G.'s trending song, adding to the memorable experience.

Our 6th week of classes felt like a typical day, though it was packed with content. We covered around 110 slides on software testing, including black-box and white-box testing methods, and discussed the System Usability Scale (SUS) — specifically, how to interpret results to assess usability.

Later, we had a group activity with our project management team, where I enjoyed analyzing questions and identifying issues with what was displayed on the monitor. It was a hands-on experience that made the theoretical content more engaging and practical.

This day in September was especially challenging, as we had two quizzes scheduled. The first was in our 7:30 a.m. class, and most of us hadn’t slept since we stayed up late studying. Then, around lunchtime, our classmates mentioned that there’d be a part 2 quiz for SDE, but we weren’t entirely convinced that we're having a quiz that day so we end up not studying huhu.

During the quiz, an earthquake drill interrupted us, and we were all instructed to go down stairs. After the drill, we had to take the stairs to go back up to the 7th floor, which left us completely exhausted by the end of the day.

In our fourth week of face-to-face classes focused on software and design, we delved into the topic of software design. The discussion included various subtopics like design principles and patterns, software design methodologies, and system implementation. These concepts gave us insight into structured approaches for creating and refining software systems. Following the lecture, we were assigned a group activity aimed at developing solutions for a specific problem, which we would later present to the other groups.

However, when it was time to start the presentations, many of us did not follow our instructor's instructions. This caused Engr. Suasola to walk out of the room, leaving us all shocked and uncertain. Despite this unexpected moment, we chose to proceed with our presentations to share our solutions with the other groups.

During our third week of class, we didn't have face-to-face classes, and our instructor, Engr. Carl Suasola, decided to make our schedule a consultation day. Since we hadn't finished our activity yet, our team decided to meet through Google Meet to divide the parts for front-end coding (UI) and discuss our manuscript.

For the remaining days of the week, our team focused on learning how to code our UI.

FIGHTING!!!

Subject Orientation for Software Design and Engineering ❀ | 081524

On Thursday, August 15, 2024, we had our first class for this subject. We began with introducing ourself and sharing our favorite music. Then, Engr. Carl Suasola started the class orientation, discussing the class requirements and rules in detail. We ended the class orientation by pledging that, as students of Software Design and Engineering, we fully comprehend the class requirements and rules discussed.

I'm hoping we can get through this subject by supporting one another and strengthening our collaboration as a team. Fighting!! ♡