One of the things that I love most about the Software Engineering program here is that, at times, there is a strong dedication to giving us real-world applications for all of this classroom learning. None of that is more apparent, though, than in the Senior Design seminars. Other program capstones might just have lengthy projects to perform, but in ours we have real clients that we have to manage, provide documentation for, develop for, and ultimately satisfy sufficiently as to get “paid” in the form of that oh-so-important acceptance letter that says “these guys and gals did a professional job, and we are satisfied with the end result.”
This semester, I am working on a project that I am pretty excited about, but recently I have gotten my hands on a project that just blows me away. A group of my classmates have been working on an Android and iPhone application for UofM Dearborn students, and I am loving it.
When you click on the familiar “M” logo, you get a menu from which you can launch pretty much everything you might need to get to related to the school: calendars, course catalog, your UM-D Connect, schedules, and your email. It even has a bunch of fun stuff, like links to the various university twitter feeds, facebook pages, blogs (and who doesn't want my blog perpetually in your pocket just waiting to be read, studied, no, SAVORED at every possible opportunity), and YouTube videos.
This app did more than just replace an irritating set of bookmarks with a slick user interface, though, they brought something that I wish existed when I first started at this campus: the map. I cannot tell you how many times I had to whip out my paper copy of the map .pdf or, absent that, try to open it on my phone to figure out roughly which building my next class was going to be in. It wasn't until I had been here several semesters that I knew what MOST of the buildings were, and I am sure there are still many I couldn't name or find if I was pressed. Now I have used the demo version of the application to find my way around to infrequently used buildings or just to play with the “Show My Location” and “Mark Parking Spot“ functions.
For those of us often found staggering around campus under a pile of books looking for some obscure building to which we never, ever have to go (what is this “CASL” of which you speak, and how does one get there?) being able to click on any one of those dots on the map and see what it is, a picture of the front of the building, and a quick blurb about it is a life-saver.
Watching the birth of this app has been a pretty awesome experience. It is impressive to see the lifecycle of a software package when you are genuinely enthused about the outcome (and how can I not be enthused about making my life easier while making it so that I can play with my phone more often…I mean, seriously, it is the marriage of my two favorite things: my laziness and my phone), and more so when you know the folks creating the package and get to see regular updates in class about the process.
At the risk of sounding needlessly like a shill (and frankly, if my enthusiasm for the application hasn't already done that, then I have a bunch of things of dubious value to sell you), this is the reason I started back to school. I was hoping to do more than merely learn a bunch of dry material and obtain a mystic piece of paper that says I am educated; but so many people that I spoke to said that their college experience was just that…so much paper. I am profoundly grateful that we have something more than that to serve as a capstone to our academic labors.