On day 4 all the students shadowing at SAS met up to work on various projects. In the morning we took part in a mock product test, and learning about the process. After a cheeseburger and a brownie for lunch, we started a project in the afternoon. Our task was to create a challenge that would go viral in order to spread awareness about access to clean water. My group of Nikki, Saavan, Alan, and I have come up with a great idea that we will record into a video and present on Monday!
On day 3 we continued to meet and learn about the various roles in the R&D department. In the morning we talked to Daniel and Dan, two developers that work in creating the software products that the testers then test. We also learned that in order to be a developer, you have to be named Daniel :). In the afternoon we were able to sit in on a conference about Agile, SAS’s method of doing business efficiently. It was super valuable to see how a meeting is run!
May 29th, 2019
Day 2 of the work experience involved job shadowing Mrs.Holland, a software engineer that worked on the testing side of the SAS product. We first started the day with a meeting with Mr.Scott, the project manager, Paige, a coworker of Mrs.Holland, and two college interns to brief them on what specifically her team did. The coolest part of her presentation is where she was able to automate the testing of a test case by having the computer mimic all the steps a person would take to use the application in very fast speed(logging in, adding data, etc).
After the meeting we went to building C for lunch. The food was amazing as always. I decided to get sushi and a chicken sand-which to spice it up from yesterday’s pizza. After lunch, we went on a tour to see Dr.Goodnight’s gemstone collection. It was said that he collected over 400 kinds of gemstones from all over the world, including Brazil, China, Russia, and the Republic of Congo.
At the end of the day, we met with someone on the development side of the product. He just graduated from the University of Illinois and has only worked at SAS for 9 months. I learned a lot about what his job entails and how he choose to major in computer science and why he has chosen SAS. Tomorrow we will be taking a campus tour. I can’t wait to see other parts of SAS that I have not yet been.
Two of Dr.Goodnight’s gemstones
Today we started meeting with many different people in R&D at SAS. We met with UI testers, an AI and machine learning developer, and a component software developer. Meeting all of these people was fantastic, and I leaned that machine learning is a lot more complex than I thought, but I am more intrigued to learn more about the subject!
My day started with meeting Ms. Dougherty, the coordinator and point of contact for the shadow program. Me and my ten other classmates had an opening presentation on SAS as a company and then broke off to meet our individual people. After lunch, Shon and I met Ms. Mayo, the person we are shadowing for the week. She talked us through her job and what UI Testing looks like. After a brief introduction into the fascinating subject, we realized our short day was over and we had to leave. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and meeting more people from Ms. Mayo’s team!
In our second day of searching it didn’t take us long to find the tablet we were looking for and once we found it, we celebrated. With that task out of the way I helped students and teachers alike resolve their computer problems if they bought or still had their computers. While helping out one of the major perks was that i had the opportunity to try out the new computers for next year. With a host of computer savvy people around me i had a great chance to talk about all the aspects of the computer and some of its amenities (of which there are many). A highlight ,however, was that I got to use a floppy disk and see how it works which was quite interesting. Overall a good day of helping out around the school and using some cool tech.
After collecting the middle school tablets and sorting them into the places they needed to go, a problem arose. The business office reported that there were a few tablets unaccounted for and as soon as i heard this i knew another search through boxes and computers was upon us. Luckily for us many of the missing computers were simply being kept by the students for a little longer and after finding most of them we narrowed it down to 3 pesky tablets. We searched through boxes and piles of computers but to no avail for the day. As we had other matters to attend to it was placed on the backburner but we will surely find the tablets the next day we search.
With many students being off campus, Monday was slow as always. With this extra time I had, I took it to talk to some members of the IS department about computers and computer-related fields. By talking with members of the IS department including Mrs.Mckenzie and Mr.Rokuskie I got some advice and some help when it comes to thinking about my plans for the future specifically about what facet of computer science I might like the best. In talking I learned some valuable knowledge about computer science including some jobs that are contained within computer science. I was also lucky to have spoken to Mrs.McKenzie who has had many different jobs in the field and was able to relay some knowledge about the ones that interested me. I asked her about being a technology/business liaison and what its like and she also told me about networking and its importance in the growth of cyber security.
