Journal 4

 Jan 29 - Feb 4

Hi, future me! It's me again (big surprise). We have almost made it through winter semester and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. All final exams and essays are due at the end of this week. We can do it! The fires are all put out and we are safe, and the two rounds of antibiotics means no more pneumonia! Things are looking up! I hope we can look back at this time of turmoil and breathe a sigh of relief.

Part I: Set Your Educational Goals

Utilizing the SMART method (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) from the "Personal Goal Setting" article, I hope to achieve A's in all of my courses in the CS program. I know I am capable of getting good grades and would like to use this as a means of keeping myself motivated to do my best work. I need to stay on track with setting time aside for assignments, and should strive to complete every assignment on time and to the best of my ability. There are many places that offer discounts on food or merchandise for good grades such as a local crab boil restaurant and my auto insurance company. This goal is measurable through my grades in the Canvas app as well as my overall GPA. The relevancy of this goal will be illustrated when I eventually apply to graduate schools. This goal has a time-bound of the next two years of the program. Should I be able to maintain this goal of straight A's, I will throw myself a big party upon graduation.

In addition to my education goals, I would also like to set a fitness goal. I will begin running every evening, with my end goal being to run a half-marathon by the end of the year for the annual Thanksgiving race. I will be able to measure my progress every day with a running app on my phone, and given my background in long-distance running, I believe this goal is very attainable. Running gives me endorphins that will give me energy and make my mood better overall. Hopefully my journal entry at the end of the year will document a successful completion of the half marathon.

Part II: Set Your Career Goals

I have aspirations to one day work in the MLB. I have a true passion for baseball, and my love of the game drives me to one day achieve this goal. I plan to apply for all relevant internships and attend the annual Women in MLB conference for networking purposes. I hope to work in the computer science department doing data science for analytics- specifically player-centered advanced analytics. My dream job would be to work for the Los Angeles Dodgers, but there are many teams I would also be very happy to work for. Even if I do not go into the data science field, I would be happy doing any type of programming for the MLB.

Part III: Take a wild guess of your percentile of the ETS CS test

Ok, I cheated a bit on this one. This portion asks for a wild guess of my score, but the module had an optional practice test, so I decided to take that and see how I scored. Surprisingly, I only got three questions wrong, and it was because I had never seen the topic before. That 13 out of 16 is just over an 81%. This made me feel as though I am on the right track and have actually retained a lot of the information from my previous computer science courses. I hope I can score even better on the actual exam in 18 months.

Part IV: Weekly Learning Update

This week's module taught me a lot about ethics arguments in writing. I had no idea there were so many different frameworks for defining an ethical argument, and I further researched a few of them for clarification. I also learned that setting realistic, achievable goals can help to push myself towards larger goals. The sample ETS test showed me that I am a capable student and know more than I think I do, as well as showing me a glimpse of what is to come in my educational journey. One thing that was very helpful for me this week was learning about bias in ethics arguments. I feel as though I often fall victim to some of these biases, including confirmation bias. When picking sources for my ethics essay, I found that I was in fact looking for articles that confirmed my bias, and I needed to broaden my search. Furthermore, I learned a lot about my teammates this week through our weekly meeting and assignment. We form a pretty cohesive team and each of us have strengths to match each other's weaknesses. In particular, the three boys in my group did not score very well on the reading emotions test, while I scored a 96. I can use this to better monitor the moods of the group and keep tensions and conflict from rising. I can utilize being the only girl in the group in taking a position as a mediator to facilitate better communications between teammates. I also really enjoyed this week's discussion forum about AI. I found it very informative to read what my classmates though about AI becoming the "new calculator" and their opinions on the societal implications of such.