Computing Comfort
I think I’ve mentioned the ridiculous number of group projects that this semester was going to involve. So, okay, there’s not really a ridiculous amount, but enough that I might go crazy. Or at least enough to affect me in some way that someone might begin to question my sanity.
We just got our groups for our first 325 group projects on Monday night. I was worried. One of the two guys in my 321 group is in my 325 class, and I really don’t like working with him, although I’m trying really hard to not let him annoy me too much. (He’s kind of lazy and not very good at communicating and challenges most things I say without having any support for his position and, although he’s far less familiar with the game that we’re building an interface for than my other group member and I am and I try to help him out and such, he really doesn’t seem to be interested in learning more. I e-mailed him some stuff over break, on Thursday when I said I’d try to get it to him early, although I told him that was unlikely, but he never even looked at it until Tuesday—yesterday.) I was worried that I was going to be extremely unlucky and have to work with him in two groups.
But no: I got a group of three different guys, two of whom are in a good number of my other classes, except that I’ve never really talked to them before.
We had a group meeting today. To be honest, I was kind of worried, because the two guys I am familiar with really seem to understand the stuff in 325. I kind of thought they were going to be snobs and impossible to work with because, to be honest, I don’t understand much of what we do in 325, at least in a functional way. (I did get an 80 on the midterm though! Which is far better than I thought I was going to do going into it! It’s sad to me that I’m relatively proud of an 80 percent.) I thought they were going to think I was a complete idiot.
But we had our group meeting today. And both of these guys, plus our other member, whom they know, I guess, who’s “old” (married with a kid and a step kid), are really cool. Motivated, but cool.
I’m motivated, in terms of wanting to do well, but not very laid-back at all, and I don’t end up getting much done compared to how motivated I am. But they’re super laid-back and also motivated, and I feel very confident about this project. Plus, they’re very understanding about the fact that I’m moving on Saturday and unable to meet with them that day, even though they want to do most of the coding that day, so they’re going to do most of the coding and let me do a lot of the documentation and such. (Although I’m going to build the GUI beforehand with basic functionality (graphical user interface; basically, what a computer program that’s not in a console looks like).
Plus, it seems they hardly know more than I do about what’s going on in 325. If they know more at all. Which is very comforting.