Carnegie Mellon West Software Management Blog
Wondering if a Carnegie Mellon degree is right for you? Read along as our students chronicle their journey through the MS in Software Management program.
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Chandra is a second-year grad student, a Director, Product Strategy at Oracle, a dedicated father and husband, and he plays a mean game of Wii Tennis. Check back often to read his new insights! |
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Dan is an IT Systems Architect at Boeing and a first-year grad student in the MS Software Management program. He loves reading , biking, and hanging out with friends over a cup of coffee. Most importantly though, he loves education! And thinks the ability to learn is one of the greatest things about people. His favorite quote is “A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.”
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Friday, October 26, 2007
Soup's On - Join the fun at Carnegie Mellon West!
My name is Daniel Maycock, and I’m a Masters of Science in Software Management student at Carnegie Mellon West. I’m also a Project Manager at Boeing in Everett, Washington. I recently just completed my first course, and boy did it stretch me! I thought having just left my undergraduate experience a mere two years ago, this graduate program would be a slam dunk, but it really stretched me. Not in a bad way of course, rather, a very very good way, a way in which I grew along with my team. And though it took some hard work, I could tell I was a stronger person at the end of the course. This is something people of all ages can benefit from too, in all stages of their careers, because Carnegie Mellon West is geared to grow you in the place you’re weakest while fine-tuning your strengths. One of the best things about this program is the fact that I have such diverse classmates and teammates. They come from all different industries, experiences (both personal and professional), and a huge part of the learning experience is being able to utilize each others’ strengths and help each other through our weaknesses. For example, one of my classmates was struggling to devote enough time to the assigned reading material, while another of my classmates did have the time to spare. We divvied up responsibilities, and that teammate was able to do the in-depth reading and research and share with us his findings, while my time-strapped classmate was able to interpret and provide great insight because of his professional experiences. The time-strapped student learned how to do more with less time, whereas the other student learned new insights beyond what he was able to get from the reading material. Both students lacked something, but grew in different areas working together – this is Carnegie Mellon West at its core! And the conversations that came out of the class, my gosh! You couldn’t get this anywhere else, learning from so many backgrounds and experiences simultaneously – it’s like cooking a fine stew with a bunch of ingredients, coming together to make an amazing meal. Sure you might have access to some salt, or paprika, maybe even some cayenne – but parsley? Forget about it! You’d need to sign up for a week long seminar on gardening just to get a taste of parsley! But at Carnegie Mellon West, your classmate is the parsley and you just happen to the garlic they were looking for. You mesh together, along with your other classmates, and before you know it – you’re entering your minestrone recipe in the county fair and getting first place! Yes my friends, you too can win the county fair – but you have to jump in the Carnegie Mellon West pot and see what’s cooking. Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking: “I don’t like minestrone and I’m doing fine on my own.” Here’s the thing though, not only are corporate folks in these classes, but entrepreneurs too! And the faculty come from backgrounds in VC’s, start-ups, established corporations, etc – it’s like the ultimate knowledge bank, waiting for you to make withdrawals (or soups). Plus my degree has been turning heads, not only because there’s lots of CMU alumni where I work at Boeing, but also because Carnegie Mellon is so well respected. (#2 in Computer Engineering by US News & World Report, and #7 in business and engineering). My experience so far has been an amazing one, and it’s only been seven weeks. The books are all books I’d buy anyways for my IT career, but now I have an excuse to spend money on them and get my wife to go along with it. Who doesn’t need an excuse to buy more books though! And the time commitment fits great, people with kids & families study and participate right along with yours truly (who has no kids at the moment, *knock on wood*). The best way I can end this first blog is, if you imagine the coolest thing in the world – it may cause you to pass out which is a health risk and is not suggested. Well, think of the coolest thing you can WITHOUT passing out, and you’ll probably be thinking about pizza or a beach, but after seven weeks in this program you’ll be thinking about Carnegie Mellon West (not on a beach though, sand gets in the computer, it’s bad news). If you don’t believe me, just ask the hundreds of students that have made Carnegie Mellon West their graduate education choice! The soup’s just right, so pull up a chair! We could use whatever fun flavors you can contribute, and hopefully you’ll be able to take some new recipes with you as well.
posted by Dan Maycock @ 2:48 PM
Monday, October 8, 2007
Back to School and the Electives
I cannot deny that the 3 weeks break after the first year of the MS in Software Management was timely and needed. The start of the second year required us to choose between the various courses offered as electives. For example, this semester we were offered a choice of four courses, each one running as a mini-semester of 7 weeks. Typically the semester is 14 weeks long, and if the semester is broken into two, you would have a mini-semester of 7 weeks each. In either case you do get a week off after the first 7 weeks of the mini-semester. We had excellent choices for electives this semester. We had to choose between Business Strategy and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) for the first mini and Product Marketing and Open Source for the second mini. I elected to take the course on HCI and Product Marketing for this semester. There are six of us in the HCI course and this contributes to a very interactive session. Instead of breaking into two groups of three each, we decided to work as a single team. This gives us twice the time with the coaches and the faculty as well as the experience of dealing with a larger team. The initial three weeks of this course have been extremely hectic for me, as I had to travel for work. I did not miss a lot of designated coach facilitated meetings or plenary sessions, however, I did miss a few ad-hoc team meetings and reading sessions. This brings me to the topic of traveling for business or pleasure while at school. I think it can be managed but it does put undue pressure on your team members especially if you are traveling overseas or to the east coast from the west coast as connectivity while traveling is still an issue and is compounded by the time difference. I don’t know the solution to this issue except to minimize traveling as much as possible. Luckily, the meetings remain flexible, so I can continue to keep up with my course assignments and not put all the burden on my teammates. I am really enjoying and learning a lot in this course. Next week I will discuss HCI.
posted by Carnegie Mellon West @ 3:18 PM
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