tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52436242496203789152024-03-12T17:14:19.214-07:00Illinois ASE REUTao Xiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11364035215805367784noreply@blogger.comBlogger125125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-46739825084744721802016-09-11T10:23:00.000-07:002016-09-11T10:23:14.587-07:00The Balance between School and ResearchOver the past two weeks, I have noticed that finding the time to do research along with my schoolwork is a sometimes difficult task. My main priority of course has to be my schoolwork but at the same time as a member of a team I still have the responsibility to put in the necessary work for our team accomplish our goal. As I started the school year, I immediately noticed that I have to manage my time more efficiently to be able to fulfill all my responsibilities. During my research over the summer, I was mainly focused on just doing my research so managing my time was not an issue but when you have lectures to go to, homework to do, quizzes and exams to study for, and RSO meetings to attend along with doing your research;finding time becomes much more challenging. In order to achieve the delicate balance needed to be successful I have had to plan out each day in order to ensure that I am able to not only get good grades but also accomplish my research goals. At times I will admit it does become a pain having to live on a daily schedule but as famous author,Victor Hugo, says "He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign."Brandon Nsiah-Ababiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08333874695122134830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-62300700215196529592016-08-01T11:10:00.003-07:002016-08-01T11:10:45.633-07:00Small to BigCurrently I am working on modifying the Codehunt data extractor code to automatically find the location of the Codehunt user directory. However, I keep on running into issues. The code used for the data extractor is almost three hundred lines, but there are only about ten lines which are needed to find the path to the user directory. Unfortunately though those ten lines of code affect all the other three hundred lines. Such a small section is somehow creating a bigger problem than anything else, and this is a consistent trend which I have noticed throughout all of the research I have done this summer.<br />
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Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and Russian-born American computer scientist, once said "Solving big problems is easier than solving little problems", and after having working on this research for this summer I understand what he meant. The most difficult problems to solve involve the smaller details which you originally dont consider when you are making goals for your research, and these small details which you often ignore eventually snowball together to create a big problem. Eventually I will solve the current minor issue that I am dealing with but until then it will continue to have all my attention.Brandon Nsiah-Ababiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08333874695122134830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-35741201681843265932016-07-30T15:19:00.000-07:002016-07-30T15:19:33.544-07:00Asking The Right QuestionsAs of now we are focusing our efforts to dig deeper into the data that we currently have. So far we have investigated the user data in two categories. One set of the data made a comparison in the performance of both Java and C# users. The other set compared users based off of their declared experience. Users can be beginner, intermediate or advanced users. Our current findings on these two data sets do not say much right now, but we are just scratching the surface. By asking the right questions we can discover more about Code Hunt and how users learn to problem solve.<br />
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Possibly looking at other aspects of our data can give us insight to this. For example the data that we were able to analyze gave us some insight to where a programmer can usually struggle. We were able to pinpoint specific puzzles based on our data. Still not every question will lead us to good results, which makes this process difficult. However, it is still a great learning process and it all depends on one's curiosity. Research so far has helped me approach the same information in different angles. Still, more questions need to be asked in order to make a big discovery in terms of educational software engineering.</div>
Pierre McCauleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07382788665621084880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-38807499355479300312016-07-16T20:29:00.001-07:002016-07-16T20:29:16.968-07:00Research as a Learning ExperienceOne of America's founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, once said "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn". In my own personal academic experience, I have noticed that the majority of the time when I do not understand a subject it is because I have no interest in learning it because I have no part in it. If you attempt to teach me about a subject like art or history, I struggle to maintain interest because I had no part in developing the art ,and the history I am being taught about does not include me. I am able to remember the information but since I have no personal involvement in it I do not learn from it. This in my opinion is one of the major reasons why the mistakes of history are constantly repeated because history is not taught in a way that most people are able easily apply to themselves.<br />
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However, research is something that demands involvement in order to be successful. I cannot attempt to research about subject if I do not become enagaged in learning about the subject and drawing connections and conclusions from what I observe. This demand for involvement in turn makes me learn by making me think critically to recognize trends and patterns in my research.<br />
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Over this past summer, I have learned more about programming than I ever had in any of the programming classes I have taken in college. Instead of creating some random program which prints out a matrix of randomly generated numbers, I am learning how to use real life variables such as time, skill level, and user attempts to make conclusions on user experiences. This application of programming to analyze real life variables has allowed me to increase my ability to see statistical trends and has also improved my program troubleshooting ability.Brandon Nsiah-Ababiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08333874695122134830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-22523933556344484802016-07-16T19:02:00.000-07:002016-07-16T19:02:06.461-07:00Asking for help<div style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
One important thing I have really noticed so far from this summer is the importance of asking for help. In the beginning we weren't exactly sure of the end goal and desired results our professor required from looking at all the data. </div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> I didn't always feel comfortable asking extra questions or saying I'm lost or don't understand in the beginning of our research because I didn't want to seem incompetent. </span></div>
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Keeping in contact with the professor through emails and office meetings has helped out to make sure that the ideas we come up with are aligned with the goals of our overall research.</div>
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After working for some time now I understand that there will always be questions. Asking questions helps everyone work together to reach a better understanding and learn together. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17992771403426719077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-66069545136491215752016-07-16T17:45:00.000-07:002016-07-16T17:45:40.965-07:00Group Experience <span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); orphans: 2; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress; widows: 2;">So far this is my first experience working with a large team to collaborate on research as a group. Accounting and other courses helps teach students how to collaborate and delegate tasks from a rubric or assignment but it's not necessarily the same as research. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2;">Since this project is more of an ongoing research project we all have to work together and lean on each other to get different parts completed in a timely fashion. Unlike some group work in the classroom where either somebody does all of the work of each person does the same assignment on their own and then comes together as a group to discuss the findings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">From our team so far each person is able to bring their own set of specialized skills and use them to help with our overall research project. I like being able to use what I'm learning in R to analyze our data and create statistical graphs to add for our research paper submission. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">When we are able to get together in the lab and work side by side it helps for brainstorming ideas and troubleshooting with minor coding errors or writers block. I'm excited to receive our first feedback from Microsoft. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17992771403426719077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-59156492370887744292016-07-16T11:42:00.001-07:002016-07-16T11:42:10.601-07:00Admitting IgnoranceOften times while I was working on analyzing the dataset I came to a problem with my program which I was not sure how to solve, and since I had already taken a class about Python I was sure that I could find some way to fix the problem myself. However, eventually I realized that I did not know how to solve the problem. My pride in my own personal knowledge was impeding my ability to fulfill the job that I was supposed to do, and I noticed that this is not a problem that I only have.<div>
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I have only had the opportunity to take three computer programming classes in college, but in all those classes I have been able to meet students who have the same problem I have. They have previous experience programming in the language which is being emphasized in the class and because of that they refuse to listen to the professor because they beleive they know more than the professor. Because of this, they refuse to listen to the professor's advice and often are stuck in office hours with less experience programmers, like myself, scrambling to complete the weekly MPs. </div>
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Bertrand Meyer, professor of software engineering at ETH Zurich, wrote a blog post about this topic and in his blog he wrote "<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The human mind is flexible; when taught well, many people can learn many subjects. But there is one case of absolute impossibility: you cannot learn something if you think you already know it -- and do not." In order to be succesful at some tasks, we first have to examine what we know and what we dont know and be willing to accept guidance from those who know more than us.</span></div>
Brandon Nsiah-Ababiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08333874695122134830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-13088635140689535282016-07-15T15:37:00.002-07:002016-07-15T15:37:37.518-07:00Experience with First DraftKnowing your team members is the most important factor when being a part of a team. It is the link to better cooperation and to finishing tasks in a timely manner. Usually I find myself working alone, but I understand the importance of working with others. You are exposed to different perspectives on the same thing. None the least, you do not have to carry all of the weight. So far me and my research team have been working together to get a publication ready for Microsoft Research. The end goal required all of us to work together efficiently.<br />
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Each of my team members specialized in areas that I may lack experience in. For example, one of my members named Josh knows how to analyze and generate statistical data. Personally for me, it was difficult to figure out what kind of data we should create for our research. It was good to get his input on the concern. As for my other team member, Brandon he was of great help in assisting me in creating raw data for Josh to analyze. Together it was a team effort and we had a pipeline system intact.<br />
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After completing our first draft of the paper, I have learned two things. First one being that I have learned how one should write and format a research paper. Using LaTex to compile the paper was a challenge in terms of positioning tables and figures, but for the most part was easy to learn. The second thing that I learned is how to manage a team. This is a skill that hasn't had a lot of exposure. I have been teams of group projects, but this was different. This time I was going for a bigger picture, and it was my job to keep the team all together. So far research has nurtured me in becoming a better leader and a smarter worker. I know that there is much more to learn, but I am looking forward to what is in store for me.Pierre McCauleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07382788665621084880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-15543036200708792312016-07-15T13:23:00.004-07:002016-07-15T13:23:56.791-07:00Young Scholars Advice for Networking When I think back to my times in high school after taking the ACT and applying for colleges, I remember asking for advice and what to expect when actually in college. Everyone would mention things like "make sure you pick your dorm early so you get the nice ones" or "enjoy the meal plan but watch out for the freshman 15", or tell me to pick a nice schedule to avoid 8am classes. However, one thing I've noticed is that no one ever mentioned the term networking.<br />
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I didn't hear the word networking very often until I got into college and didn't really understand what it meant. If I could talk to students from my high school, I would tell them that when they get to college don't be afraid to step out of their natural comfort zone, and try to make the most out of every opportunity. Networking is something that happens all the time whether if it is a business event, research presentation, or just talking to people around the office, there is always an opportunity to put your best foot forward and represent yourself.<br />
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An important key to networking is to do your research on the person or company (sometimes both) that your interested in. For example, as a sophomore or junior student trying to earn an internship for the summer, I would recommend going online and browsing the company's website and looking for any interesting news articles they may have been mentioned in, learning about their products, and how the company operates as a whole aside from just the specific position of interest. Being familiar with the CEO and the organizations goals will give you a way to ease into the conversation at the next event or or interview.<br />
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Finally I would express the importance of staying humble while speaking about your current or past experiences. Instead of bragging about your accomplishments and what makes you so great, it might be better to talk about what you have done in the past and how it has been a benefit to others around you, or what you have learned from those experiences and new people.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17992771403426719077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-23538232142837348312016-07-15T09:58:00.002-07:002016-07-15T09:58:49.807-07:00Investing in Education in Developing Countries Luckily, in the United States as with most developed countries almost everywhere in our society people have access to necessary tools to learn how to code and improve their programming skills. However, that is not the case with most developing countries. For two weeks, I was able to spend sometime in Ghana and I got to experience what it is like to live in a developing country and the struggles that exist there for someone who is learning to code. While I was in Ghana, I was attempting to learn more about Python in order to work on the data analysis for Codehunt but the problem was I was unable to get any access to anything which could help me. The main reason for this was because of the fact that the electricity would be turned on and off at arbitrary times, and even when you could get access to electricity because of the lack of good wireless connectivity in many areas even with electricity internet was inaccessible.<br />
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After coming back to America, I talked about my experience with some of my friends and learned that this is not only a problem in Ghana but also a problem in the a large majority of Africa, the Philippines, and many countries in South and Central America. The reason I find that this is a problem is because the people in those countries may have talents and abilities in computer science which they are unable to capitalize on because of their lack of access to knowledge about computer science, and that not only hurts them but also hurts us here in the United States also. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, 2.5 million STEM jobs are not filled every year in the United States because of a lack of people who have the ability to fulfill those jobs. This same report also states that the majority of people who are studying science and technology in the United States are not Americans but instead Chinese and South Koreans, and although that type of diversity is appreciated what if we could get more diversity allowing for a wider ranger of ideas and thoughts.<br />
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Individuals from different cultures all see things in different ways and this diversity of though allows for the creation of broad perspective which is important not only in academics but also in the corporate world. There are many opportunities for business in numerous countries around the world which live in a different culture than our own and as such need different products than we use in our culture. I feel that it would be beneficial for not only universities but also companies to take a greater look at the potential of individuals in foreign countries to help make their universities and companies more diverse. I believe that these companies and universities should invest in improving the situation in those countries to allow the people more access to useful knowledge about science and technology which would allow them to then help educate those people to bring them to the United States to fill jobs and help turn companies into more globalized brands.Brandon Nsiah-Ababiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08333874695122134830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-26633243869871838962016-07-05T15:40:00.001-07:002016-07-05T15:40:38.249-07:00Inclusion: Choice of Words After taking 100+ credit hours at the University of Illinois I have experienced many different classroom atmospheres. To begin with, most entry level undergrad courses range from weed out classes and general ed required courses with class sizes of about 300+ students to upper level major courses with only 15-30 students per section. Clearly, the professors cannot honestly make an attempt to allocate their time to all 300 students during the lecture time, but in the smaller class sizes I feel it is important for each student to feel comfortable with their peers and the professor when it comes to asking for help, working together, and learning.<br />
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I hardly ever think it's a good feeling to be left out, unheard, excluded, or singled out in the classroom or other learning environments. I really think that even the changes in tone, mannerisms, or choice of language can make all the difference in a students learning experience.<br />
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For example, in both my accounting and business technical writing courses I've experienced group based work and discussion based participation throughout the regular course schedule. One of the most frustrating times as a student is feeling like you're the only person who doesn't understand or constantly has questions in the class when everyone else sort of just gets it or understands the materials.<br />
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I had a professor who would sort of rush through the lecture and stop to ask "who doesn't get it?" or "who doesn't understand?" as a way to ask if any students have questions. In this instance, a few students usually have lingering questions but do not raise their hands or say anything because they do not want to feel isolated under the rhetoric of someone who "doesn't get it".<br />
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I'm not exactly sure what caused the change, but later in the semester the professor made a point to correct his choice of words when pausing for questions to ask in less isolating way by changing his words to "Do you have any questions?" or "Is there anything you want to go over that might have been unclear?". I would notice 3-4 hands go up (including my own). I feel like that simple change made my entire learning environment more comfortable to ask questions as well as simply participate when I felt I had the right answer or something valuable to say to add in the discussion.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17992771403426719077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-40377998835196216722016-07-02T15:17:00.002-07:002016-07-02T15:17:52.331-07:00Broadening My Skillset As of lately, a lot of people have been asking about my summer plans and what I want to do after completing my last year of undergrad. I begin explaining my Code Hunt research position and explain how I'm learning computer programming. "Well aren't you an accounting major?" is typically the first response I receive. Yes I am, however, learning computer programming software has helped sharpen my "beginning-to-end" thinking process, which is critical in the accounting field.<br />
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Seeing as most accountants actively use excel spreadsheets and other financial related software and programs for accounting measures, it is important to understand the step-by-step decision making process that is also derived from learning and executing computer code. Learning R has gotten me familiar with troubleshooting errors line by line and that same skill transfers over when working on my accounting related course work in cost accounting and other upper level courses I have taken.<br />
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Recent articles from AICPA, explain that graduating accounting students pursuing the Big Four public accounting firms [E&Y, Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC] should pursue Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license <u>and</u> students should also consider learning how to code. The combined range of skills makes students highly competitive in their field and very marketable as technology continues to carry on. I am excited to continue learning about code and see how I can take these skills with me once I enter the work force. Initially, I never would have thought about combining the two, until the opportunity presented itself after a quick discussion with Dr. Xie and I am glad I took the chance.<br />
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http://www.aicpa.org/interestareas/accountingeducation/newsandpublications/pages/should-accounting-students-code.aspx<br />
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Joshua Reed<br />
July 2nd, 2016Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17992771403426719077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-41457802948565799412016-07-01T15:40:00.002-07:002016-07-01T15:40:36.450-07:00Moving ForwardAs I start writing our research paper, a question came to mind. What is next? After my meeting with Dr. Xie yesterday, we started discussing future plans after the research paper. One of the suggestions was working with one of my research partners to create APIs that could expand on what Code Hunt is. Since I have been programming in Python, it was mentioned that we try to get a feature where users could play Code Hunt by coding in Python. I actually like this idea, because I believe that it will also build my programming foundation and give myself another challenge. Doing this task would be very enjoyable since it is much more different than assorting and processing data.What I have come to realize about research is that you are given more freedom in what you can explore. When working in the corporate world, all of your efforts are directed towards a specific mission that the company has set for themselves. This what I am liking about research; the freedom to explore. As I continue to do research this summer, more questions will be asked and more finding will come from it. I am looking forward to where research is going to take me for the next four weeks. Pierre McCauleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07382788665621084880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-73124247953861370082016-07-01T14:32:00.000-07:002016-07-01T14:32:36.549-07:00Website for CodeHuntBeing able to use the skill that I learned over 2 summers ago is kind of cool because I was previously using this skill from time to time. Now that I am able to use my web development skills to help display data that was extracted from CodeHunt Data. From that I have set up a website that will display the raw data for each Sector. Within each Sector there is levels and there is the Raw Data for each level. I am still a little rusty so somethings are taking much longer to work than I thought. It is still a work in progress, but I am thinking positive for the completion of this site.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07705947057072872452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-74830790191092395592016-07-01T14:06:00.001-07:002016-07-01T14:06:25.195-07:00Research OpportunityI started Research for the first time this summer and it wasn't much like how I thought it would be and its not necessarily a bad or good thing. It is all what you make it and if you want to truly receive the most of the opportunity you will give it a lot of energy. Since it is the summer time you should be able to do so unless you are like me and are taking multiple classes during this time as well. I encourage others to do research and take the opportunity to create a solution for others.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07705947057072872452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-68645038581956747002016-07-01T11:03:00.004-07:002016-07-01T11:03:57.014-07:00Adjusting to a Research Environment More often then not when you are working in a class setting whether it be in a computer programming class or any class in general; you always have a set list of problems with a set list of solutions and there are teaching aids and professors who are there to help and guide you to the soultion to every step. However, I have learned that in research this is not the case. In research, there are a multitude of different problems which happens to arise when you are trying to achieve your overall goal. Before this summer, I had prior research before coming to Illinois as a freshman but that research had nothing to do with computer programming and more often than not when I had a problem it was easy to solve.<br />
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As I have learned in many of my computer programming classes programming always brings about some minor problems which you had not planned for. You cannot just write a huge amount of code without testing it constantly or you will finish writing all of your code and realize that it will not compile. Even with prior experience using Python, I encountered multiple problems while doing tasks which in my mind should have been easy to accomplish. However, I find the challenge of solving these problems and making something which I hope can be useful for our research team to be very fulfilling. I enjoy the idea that when I overcome these minor challenges and tasks I will hopefully have made something worthwhile with my time.Brandon Nsiah-Ababiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08333874695122134830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-84279798331890534832016-06-30T02:29:00.002-07:002016-07-01T15:46:28.996-07:00Back to Square One: Conducting Experiments Programmers strive in understanding and applying math and algorithms to make their jobs and lives of other around them easier. I myself feel this way, however there is one skill that majority of programmers lack in as they become more proficient in coding. Writing is something that everyone should be experienced in, but this is not the case for programmers. Our jobs usually have us sitting in front of a computer revising code or creating programs or new processes. Since we are exposed to this lifestyle, we tend to have sudden decrease in writing proficiency. I have fallen victim to this stereotype myself. I even took an advance composition class, and even though I have regained my writing skills, it is far more different than writing a research paper.<br />
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After my meeting with Joshua and Dr. Xie, I realized that all of the work that I drafted for the research paper is not the right direction. Dr. Xie mentioned that we had to approach this paper in a more scientific fashion. This means that we needed to create a paper that revolved around the concept of formulating a hypothesis and then carry out an experiment. I believe the last time that I have written a paper in this manner had to be my senior year of high school. Other than that, I have been writing papers in an essay format. Getting myself accustomed to writing in this format has been rather tough for me, but at the same time it has made me more curious and interested in my research. I actually have more enthusiasm in my work because it is forcing me to become more of a critical thinker. With that being said, my research does not stop when a hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, it only goes forward from there by asking the question, "Why?". With deadlines coming up, this will be a challenging few days, but will all be worth it in the end.</div>
Pierre McCauleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07382788665621084880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-84734404287316026602016-06-26T22:19:00.003-07:002016-06-26T22:20:31.019-07:00From Accountancy to CS: Code Hunt Research and R Programming<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">6.26.16</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><u>Codehunt Research and R programming</u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">From Accountancy to CS</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the end of my third year at Illinois and coming from a guided accounting background, I initially had little experience in computer coding aside from experience in visual basic in excel. My background consists of economics, accounting, and statistical analysis. However, this was not a barrier when it came down to learning about my first computer programming language R. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After being introduced to current progress of Code Hunt and the direction in which our research would be headed I began to self teach the basics of R using a program called R Studio. I began watching videos on youtube, Khan Academy, and Lynda to learn about the basics of coding and the functionality of R. My first main task in Code Hunt was to understand the structure of the game and analyze the raw user data to produce statistical analysis based on last years 48 hour player competition. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At first glance R seemed very complex and impossible to figure out without any prior computer programming or coding knowledge. I began testing it out by running simple lines of code to import data sets from .csv files, sorting and creating subsets, learning about building matrices. Next I felt comfortable moving on to plotting data by creating bar plots, and box plots. This took a fair amount of time to grasp the concepts of placing each variable within the code and troubleshooting error messages but nonetheless it was worth figuring out. Now I have created a range of graphs and multitude of R scripts to be used for further analyzing our data.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of my latest challenges was exploring gitHub and bitBucket for cloning source codes and producing commits, which seem to be common in the realm of computer science. With the help of my team I was able to figure how to use the command terminal to git pull and git push files to finally upload into our team repository. Overall, I feel like every time I open R and begin digging through the data or clocking into the lab and meeting with our team I find more things to learn about which is the exciting part of research.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17992771403426719077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-24779300031018324952016-06-20T02:45:00.004-07:002016-06-20T02:45:42.810-07:00Learning from Code HuntIn the early stages of research, I devoted my time to learn Python programming. To my surprise, the language was rather intuitive and user-friendly. Learning how to program in that language was not difficult at all. The only interesting thing about the language is declaring data types for variables is ambiguous. After learning how to code in Python, my first task was to take a look into the metadata extraction program that a student previously wrote. Originally, this program would iterate throughout all user data in the data release and write certain information about each level into a text file. The only user data that each level consisted of was the amount of attempts the person had on each level. This program does not differentiate between if the submission was in the Java or C# language. After making some modifications and multiple revisions of the data extraction program, the program was able to give us more information about each player's submission. It can also create two data sets; one in Java and one in C#.<br />
<br />
For the past few weeks, the research that I have been conducting with my team has been a valuable learning experience. Engineers usually have to implement critical thinking in order to solve problems or decipher data that is presented to them. So far Dr. Xie has helped me and the research team utilize our thinking and problem solving skills to understand what we can learn from Code Hunt users, based off of their submissions. Currently, we are in the phase of gathering materials to write a research paper on our Code Hunt users. There is already a research paper that has been published. What we plan to do is try to draw up conclusions that would be useful to more than one group of people. Those stakeholders include professors in computer science, game designers for Code Hunt, companies that seek to teach their employees how to program, and even the users themselves. There is much more to accomplish in these next 10 days before our first deadline.Pierre McCauleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07382788665621084880noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-88548991015720009602015-08-25T20:28:00.003-07:002015-08-25T20:28:50.452-07:00Python vs. C#<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When I was first given the task of creating the meta data extraction program, I was given a choice between Python or C# to code the program. I had to carefully weigh my options because I needed to consider which language would allow me to complete the task with the least complications. Before I made my decision I looked at the following factors: <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">cross platform development, availability of </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">language features, syntax and familiarity. I required </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">cross platform development because I knew from the beginning that I needed to create a program that would run on Windows and Unix based operating systems. Language features were important because there were certain directory navigation actions and functions that would be imperative to constructing my program. These functions needed to be in standard importable modules/libraries for the language that I chose. Syntax was important for very obvious reasons, I needed something that was easy for me to read.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Finally, familiarity was key because it would be a better for me to have experience with the language or a similar language. In my final decision, I chose Python because it had all these features and I had already coded smaller programs in Python. I have done things with C and Java but I felt that the leap to C# would slow down my progress with the task. Coupled with the fact that the General Use Machine Learning for Learning Library by Khanacademy was written in Python, it was an easy decision to make.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18028884271123128072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-15928215484046440752015-08-23T17:37:00.003-07:002015-08-23T17:37:33.568-07:00Google is Better than Noodles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Upon completion of my data
extraction program, it is vital that I reflect on what I have experienced in
the process of its creation. Spending several hours typing and debugging code
yield the fruition of my first self-designed program as an engineer and
programmer. It pleases me to learn that I have the capability to design and
realize a project but there is something more important that I have learnt.
Google is the greatest invention conceived by the human race since fire. There
were several times during my journey to complete my program that I would
encounter enigmatic bugs and Google would come to my rescue. An example of this
is when I was attempting to provide support for Windows on the data extraction
program. I had researched the directory layout for Windows systems and
discovered that looked something like this: C:\Users\fisiaka2. The Windows
directory system uses back-slashes unlike Unix directory systems, which use front-slashes.
To me this seemed like a simple implementation, ask the user what system they
were using and choose the starting string based on that. Never in my wildest
dreams did I expect a basic data type like a string to make me question my
competence as a programmer. I received a plethora of errors no matter how I
organized my strings for the Windows platform. Bewildered and frustrated, I
googled the errors that IDLE (a Python Interactive Development Environment) was
maliciously spewing at me. “Why do solutions to these errors always end up so
simple?” I asked myself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One user on
Stackoverflow explained that backslashes are not considered to be regular
characters in Python. And make them part of a string, the string must be
modified to be a raw string! All I had to do was put the letter r before the
quotation marks in the string and just like that Windows support had been
provided. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, this is a huge shoutout to
Google for being so useful. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18028884271123128072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-485080223345113632015-08-01T17:38:00.000-07:002015-08-01T17:38:05.249-07:00The Internet As An Educational Tool: Accessibility Of Information On An Ever Growing Worldwide Web If sifting through numerous sites on the web has taught me anything, it's that dissemination of information is still very chaotic. You get a sense of that on social media and news outlets. But I'm reflecting on education. Take the example of computing and developer support. I previously assumed that information sources and forums such as Git Hub, MSDN, Stack Overflow and many more would bring a semblance of direction in exploring uncharted topics in computing and programming. I might have been a bit too hopeful. I often find myself unable to find information that should be relatively easy to obtain, and sometimes even information that I know exists on the web. The most recurring issue, however, is of information that falls short of my needs. While some of this can be chalked down to the imperfections of search engines (which are nonetheless immeasurably helpful), there is a more obvious reason: data on the web is the input of people. Information gets left out, mixed up, generalized to a fault, or specified to a limited cause. The problem that is then presented to you, the consumer of such information, is to unravel it. This in itself is a good thing, as there is no better way to gain mastery of it. But when pieces are left out, you can hardly piece together a coherent picture, much less a full one. Weigh in the proneness to error in unregulated (or badly regulated) sources and you have a picture which may not even be correct. If you want to avoid this, you are then forced to limit your search to sites of established credibility or collaborative user input. The luxury of time needed to consume and vet information from all sources has long been noted- a single Google search returns millions of results, a small fraction of which is relevant to the purpose of the search. <br />
<br />
So what happens when you do find relevant information to your cause? One possibility is that you have exactly what you need. Another is that you get something that you can adapt to your need, based on your previous knowledge on the subject matter, based on common sense, or based on the directions of a contributor. A third possibility is that you find information that you cannot act on- information that is beyond your comprehension, or not applicable to your instance. For much of my use of the internet, I haven't had to entertain this third possibility; but as I have delved into topics of increasing complexity, it's become an all too common theme in both my research project and my education. Why?<br />
<br />
I have two reasons, the first being that some information on the internet comes without structure. In the different fields, there exists support in navigating processes. Such support is robust only at basic levels. Anything beyond that comes in bits and pieces. Let me introduce an example I have encountered in the research project I am currently undertaking: dupFinder is not well documented, perhaps because mostly experienced users of code analysis software have need for it, so it takes certain knowledge for granted, and the instructions for it's use that are available on the web are all duplicates of the original- scant, vague, and containing no reference to information that could be helpful in working up to the level of demystifying it. MSDN on the other hand, is well documented, because it is intended to be a reference point for developers of varying experience. But once you begin to leave the realms of programming that do not directly involve languages and their syntax, the extent of it's support is overreached, and the chaos of information takes over. The fall off in documented support as I progress from basic programming to more complex programming is quite sudden. The other reason is that there aren't as many people operating at the higher levels of complexity, and even fewer of that section contributing to these sources.<br />
<br />
As the internet grows, it's been heralded as the educational tool of the future, but if these conditions remain, and with more people turning to the internet to facilitate this process, won't it be as problematic as ever at the advanced levels? Or would the information supply at advanced levels boost? We can't leave this one to chance- we've got to start thinking critically about how we organize the data we add to the web.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08017336180936439372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-27886334310089410622015-07-17T15:39:00.002-07:002015-07-17T15:39:41.542-07:00Is technology hindering communication?Am I the only person who's noticed that the rapid evolution of technology has been reducing interpersonal communication? Have you ever been walking down the street alone, noticed a person walking by the opposite way, and pulled your phone out to avoid making eye contact with that person? Have you ever been in a room full of strangers and, instead of introducing yourself and starting conversation, went to Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook for entertainment to pass the time? I am aware that the evolution of technology is to make life easier, and cell phones make it easier to stay connected and communicate with your friends, but will we ever meet new people if we continue this way? The generations after mine are more tech savvy than ever but I'm guessing their interpersonal skills are lacking. Kids these days substitute video games for board games, substitute NBA 2k for actually going to the basketball courts, etc.<br />
<br />
The most important question here is will this cause the younger generations to lack interpersonal skills? Is this actually a problem that society faces today, or is it just society evolving as it has always done? Interpersonal, teamwork, leadership, and communication are four of the top five skills that employers look for, all of which are hard to acquire if kids never seek different opportunities because everything is already at their fingertips on the internet. Maybe I'm just sour that things are easier for the younger generations than they were for me. Or maybe it's an apparent problem with society today that be studied to improve technological uses and advancements for the better. Only time will tell.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185676033360293209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-88477882655538929572015-06-22T12:15:00.002-07:002015-06-23T23:31:11.950-07:00My Journey Into New Territory: C#, Roslyn and APIs I've been trying to teach myself C#, mostly by playing the Code Hunt puzzles to learn its differences from C and C++, and writing basic programs. I did this in the name of speedy learning- something I previously considered my forte. As it turns out, this isn't a good way to get a solid foundation in any language, so writing more detailed code in C# for my research tasks has been rough. I've had to go back and relearn everything I've known about functions, objects, classes, overloading, and file i/o from C and C++, because besides the C in it's name, there isn't much in common with the other languages I know. The sunny side, however, is that I have now been exposed to completely new methods and system calls that implicitly perform a whole bunch of operations. I am now confident that when dealing with advanced tasks, C# has my back. I've also had to learn about file and directory manipulations, and from navigating and searching directories to creating and writing files I've gotten a lot of insight into the workings of installer packages. My conclusion is thus: C# is pretty neat. I think I'll make it my default language. <br />
In the past weeks I've had to learn about APIs, a new topic for me. An Application Program Interface, consists of building blocks for software. APIs determine connections and compatibility between software components, and you use them to create graphical user interfaces. An API gives you a set of routines and you make calls to the API to do what you want. They are used in just about every website you love, from Google Maps and YouTube to Twitter and Amazon. The API I will be using is the Code Hunt REST API, which essentially provides core data from the website, for example data from users such as their experience, and number of attempts for a given level. Every programmer is going to come into solid contact with APIs, so this is a very important experience. I'm going to get my hands dirty with the Code Hunt API as soon as I can figure out what calls I can make to it, and just how it can work with a compiler.<br />
When I first began coding I came across the <b>.NET Compiler Platform</b> known as <b>Roslyn</b>, a compiler platform for C# and Visual Basic. Because it's compilers come with APIs for code analysis, it will be a very useful tool in the weeks ahead. It is only available on Visual Studio 2015, so if you intend to use it, you have to download and install VS 2015 Community or Enterprise(Community is free but Enterprise costs $$$). I plan to use it to parse the user code obtained from the Code Hunt API. Looking at sample code that shows how the two work together is quite daunting. I can hardly get a sense of which calls are to the REST API and which code is for Roslyn. I will have to test the sample code to find out which is which. That will be my exploration for the immediate future. I'll let you know what I find. <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08017336180936439372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5243624249620378915.post-37439987802830613922015-06-20T23:34:00.003-07:002015-06-20T23:35:50.908-07:00No Knowledge is Lost<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 10px;">
Last summer I was still very new to the concept of coding, mostly because it was not offered at my high school. I had already taken a college course here, at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, on programming with MATLAB. I received an A in the course but mostly because a friend of mine helped me through the class (Thank you, Nishad). I did not feel satisfied by the level that I was at by the end of the school year and so after talking other students and professors, it was recommended that I try learning code online. The site was highly recommended to me was Codecademy, I immediately signed up but I concede that I had my doubts that I could actually teach myself to code in a new language over the course of a summer. Codecademy offers several languages such as Javascript, Ruby and HTML. After doing some research online I decided that Python was the best language for me to begin learning. The Codecademy Python course is listed as a 13-hour long course and I had 3 months to learn the language. Slowly, but surely as I went through each lesson I felt more comfortable in the mystic realm that is coding. I began to think to myself, 'Anyone can teach themselves to code with enough interest', and I believe this to be true. Learning Python on my own helped me significantly in my sophomore year and made me love coding. Not only has it been a fun experience for me it has opened opportunities for me. Fast forward to my next summer and I am now writing code for research in the very language I knew nothing about a year ago. It is only now that I understand an adage my dad has reiterated to me: "No Knowledge is Lost".<br />
<br />
-F</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18028884271123128072noreply@blogger.com0