Week 2 Learning Journal Post

Part 1: Review and Reflect Learning Strategy

My top 3 study skills, in which I believe I am good at, are thinking skills, getting the main idea, and extracting important details. Why do I say this? 

Well, I think you develop thinking skills from experience. The article says that everyone has thinking skills, but not everyone uses them correctly. My response to this is that I cannot be scared of dead ends; I have to be scared of not thinking there is no way out. Identifying the main idea from anything is crucial, especially being around a high-paced environment. After 22 years, I believe I have learned to do a decent job when I have to figure out the central idea or concept. Meaning that I can focus on what is more relevant. This goes hand in hand with extracting important details, good note taking is mentioned, I like to organize ideas on bullet points in a way that I organize what I hear from what I think. I believe I do a good job with that

I am weak when it comes to studying around meals and sleep, preparing an outline before writing, and taking effective study breaks.

Sometimes I am eating while I read or study, or do homework while I am in bed, keeping myself from sleeping. This is a bad habit that I need to change. I also need to do better at preparing an outline before writing. Sometimes I write papers without any proper structure, although I get the main idea, I can improve by organizing myself better. In addition, I have a horrible habit of taking ineffective study breaks. On my break time, I would just be in the same spot scrolling through social media, my brain often does not get an effective break, thanks to my habit.

Part 2: Preview Time Management Skills

This would be my ideal schedule every week

Part 3: Project Management Basics

The videos I watch are about project management. The first video talks about using knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet specific project goals within a set timeframe. It also talked about how to keep a timeline and scope, and budget to avoid trouble and headaches. The second video talked about how to break a big project into small achievable steps to organize it and achieve the goal better. The third video talks about planning, a visual tool to monitor progress. I find all this information to be simple yet quite effective in organizing any type of project!

Part 4: Check Out Previous Capstones

First project I chose: OtterParsing

1. What was the type of the project?  

• Takes many resumes and takes relevant data, like experience, education, certifications, skills, and projects. They use Prodigy's annotations to highlight relevant information, and then it gets refined. 

2. Was the project well done?  

• Yes, it works and does what is expected from it. 

3. How do you like the presentation?  

• I like it because it is useful, and many companies can use it if some areas are improved.

4. Can the project and presentation be improved?

• If someone has experience in the same field but in different jobs, the system will not count it. It will just take one job, not all of them, and give you a total experience.

Second project I chose: US Naval Research Laboratory - Security  Scan Summary 

1. What was the type of the project?  

• Enhance how security issues in code are understood and communicated across teams, making it more accessible for others. Without an easy way to share problems, severity can be overlooked. 

2. Was the project well done?  

• Report is clear and simple; the easier the problem is understood, the easier a solution is found. The results are exported to a PDF, and PDFs are always easy to read. It even includes graphs, and is organized based on severity, sorted, and easy to visualize.

3. How do you like the presentation?  

• I can see great teamwork and collaboration. Information is presented simply.

4. Can the project and presentation be improved?

• Yes, explain slightly more about how the project works, how it is exported to PDF, and how the risks are measured.

Third project I chose: National AI-Campus

1. What was the type of the project?  

• Improving how to identify brain tumors using computer vision by improving an existing algorithm using the U-Net model.

2. Was the project well done?  

• Yes, the information on how tumors are detected is simple, and image segmentation is explained well. Images help understand how U-Net works. A lot of research was done.

3. How do you like the presentation?  

• Performance of the project is good. It can help save lives in the Future with enhanced accuracy.

4. Can the project and presentation be improved?

• This was a project made by one person. Was there a team?
• More time to explain different concepts, but maybe it was the time required by the assignment.

Part 5: Summarize Your Week on Your Learning Journal

As I reflect on my week, I have learned a lot. I reflected on the study skills I am good at, like thinking skills, getting the main idea, and extracting key details. I also reflected on the study skills I need improvement in, like studying while eating or in bed, writing without an outline, and ineffective study breaks. My productivity will be better once I become better and change my habits. 

I also made a schedule on my ideal weekly schedule, planning sleeping, eating, working, studying, and free time. And I learned about project management with some videos, about the basics of project management, the Work Breakdown Structure, and about the Gantt Charts are visual tools to track different tasks.

Finally my paper has been long, so I am glad I dedicated enough time to it. I will try to enhance it in the upcoming days!

Finishing week strong!