Final Blog Reflection for Senior Seminar

The most important parts of the course for me were:
1. Becoming more familiar with data privacy, data security and intellectual property aspects of software applications – We used case studies to talk about how data is stored, privacy policies, some security risks, and how intellectual property contention could impacts monetization in software and similar creative products. When starting a project with multiple people or in a public-private partnership where different entities or people have a role, it could be harder to decide on ways of monetizing the product if it gets to that stage.
2. Learning interesting things about beekeeping – This includes how honeybees stay active during the winter, swarm, and rely on warmer dry Spring weather among other things. I also learned that beehive location is highly sensitive information that is considered a trade secret by professional beekeepers.
3. Learning that people tend to change jobs frequently and use their existing network in professional software development – This was touched on when we were talking about finding jobs and when we had a local guest speaker who had worked in software development. It is helpful to use personal connections in order to find an entry level position, especially in a saturated job market.

For my advice to future students: 
Discussions in class can sometimes be helpful, so it is useful to come to class and to participate. I found it easier to talk in smaller group assignments, and this is where a lot of the more valuable discussions happened for me. Sometimes when there is a larger group discussion, several people have the same or similar idea and the insights gained are over-determined.