Week 2 Report

 When it comes to studying, three things that I am good at are: maintaining a good study space, getting the main idea when studying, and picking out key words. Three things that I must improve at are: scheduling (especially being more consistent on my schedule), researching areas of confusion more often, and taking more notes. 

In lecture, we learned a fair amount more about the world of programming. JavaScript and Python are the most popular programming languages being used right now. AI is still advancing at a crazy pace. Progress in the technology world is developing at a ridiculous pace, as in exponentially.  Moore's law said that our progress with transistors doubles every year, and in about 25 years one thousand bucks will be able to buy us the computational power of the whole human species, which is insane. We learned that crowdfunding is going to reach 300 billion dollars in 2025, venture capital and initial coin offerings are also peaking in recent times, meaning we are at a point of incredible capital abundance. The cost of bandwidth, storage, and costs of tech creation in general are all plummeting compared to decades past. Telecommunication are over a thousand times cheaper, and we may even have satellite internet soon with starlink and with good connection too. We are going to see over 4 billion minds coming onto the internet in the next seven years, which will almost certainly produce immense technological advancements - even more so than we are seeing now. Brain computer interfaces are something we may see. Experts predict that in about twelve years we can reach longevity escape velocity, or the velocity at which 1 year of life produces technological advancement that extends the average lifespan by more than 1 year. This is both terrifying and exciting in many ways. 

We learned that time, scope, and cost are the main elements of a project. Projects arise in response to specific needs, such as legal or business needs. How a corporation chooses a need to address is decided by urgency and typically follows a routine project proposal to a board who then selects the project(s) that have the highest return on investment. Boards of directors will typically perform project portfolio management to accomplish a cost-return analysis in their decision making on projects. When a board of directors approves a project, the project manager, who is the "ceo" of a project, handles the execution of the project, maintaining position within the project budget, time, and scope. The project manager is the most accountable for ensuring that the project, or in many cases projects, are properly completed. The project manager is the face for the project, and is the go-to contact for any questions or concerns regarding the project. The first skill that project managers have is project management and business knowledge. The second skill is people and workflow management skills, and the third is strategy and leadership skills. Projects have been seen throughout all of history, such as with pyramids. Dupont invented the critical path method in the 1950s, which can help managers to identify the best way to sequence activities in a project. The project management office is the department responsible for managing project related work. Project stakeholders are people who participate in, influence, or are influenced by projects. This means that even a public project restructuring your driveway makes you a stakeholder of that project.

 In the online learning initiative, we got to learn more about teamwork. Specifically, teams with more women, equal participation and high social sensitivity are more successful because they have more collective intelligence. Even at google we noticed that teams are looking for people who are great team players and have dynamic, flexible thinking. 

In the writing lab, we got to improve our writing skills and learn how to write for a specific target audience. We went over different errors that might be made such as using cliches, not properly citing, and making personal references. I also learned how to peer review another person's paper, in this case I was able to peer review 2 of my teammates' papers. This is a helpful skill because critiquing others' work is important if someone is in a small team of developers. By helping them to improve, I can also learn more at the same time so everyone wins.

For our industry analysis, I learned a ton about the game development industry, which is my chosen topic for our industry analysis assignment. For starters, game developers need specific skills in order to succeed. Soft skills, teamwork, good communication, and expertise among various languages such as Java, C++, C#, and with game engines such as Unity and Unreal. The industry is still growing, and it actually did have a small boom during the COVID-19 pandemic as many people who were locked down chose to game more often. There were certain games like Genshin Impact which were mini pioneers in the style of free-to-play-with-in-game-transactions, particularly during the pandemic. Moving forward, it is the free-to-play-with-in-game-transactions games that look to be dominating the market, especially mobile games.Therefore, one could consider mobile game developing a potential future career if they were to be interested in the field. That being said, we can never be too certain since new avenues with VR and AR can play a huge role in the next few years or not, depending on many factors.