Week 1 CSUMB History, APA, and Industry Analysis

Wow, it is already the first week. I am feeling a bit anxious as I haven't been to school since 2020. I definitely need to reassess my study tactics and demonstrate a fresh outlook to the academic life.

The week started quite simple as I met my teammates and we completed our first assignment in creating a team resume. The resume turned out great! I am excited to continue working with this team as we were able to communicate and work well with each other.

I began learning about CSUMB's history and the School of Computing and Design through the CSUMB website and the links provided in the module. I never knew this but CSUMB was actually an old US Army Base called Fort Ord that has been decommissioned in 1994. The school was established in 1995 around the time I was born, which makes me nearly the same age as the university. It was just something I found interesting. 

Something I had to do this week was watch a video that went through the essential strategies for online learning success. The strategies I learned were to read the syllabus in order to understand grading policies and resources, plan study times through out the week, actively participate in courses, and to collaborate. The video mentioned to check on courses at a minimum three times a week and to not binge the workload. I will definitely need to build a habit of checking Canvas constantly in order to stay within the pace of the weekly workload for this program.

Throughout the week I reviewed the essential writing conventions for our Industry Analysis Essay. I haven't written a paper in awhile so this was refreshing to see. Going through the Module 1 slides I examined the the APA standard of writing. I learned how to differentiate the type of research sources such as primary sources, secondary sources and tertiary sources; also how to properly cite them in a reference page. In addition I relearned what constitutes as plagiarism, for example failing to properly give credit to the source, turning in another persons work or even using a previous work that was done by me. Writing isn't my strongest subject so I may have to review these slides periodically.

I started my Industry Analysis Outline. My focus for this paper will be on Software Engineering for the Artificial Intelligence industry. I will write about the company NVIDIA and their upcoming plans for AI. This idea came from when I recently watched the CES keynote from NVIDIA and saw their innovative AI tech. I thought it would a good topic to focus on since I am very interested in what AI has to offer for the future and how AI will affect my future career as a Software Engineer.

Nevertheless, this was my first week at CSUMB's online program, and so far I am having a smooth experience. I am excited to learn more as time goes on!

Here is the CES Keynote by NVIDIA I recently watched.

https://youtu.be/dpM6IhXhS6w?si=EbkLcMDTlHhHvo3i

Reference:

Bay, C. S. U. M. B (n.d.). History | California State University Monterey Bay. Csumb.edu. https://csumb.edu/about/history/