My Experience in Software Engineering II
16 May 2025
Both software engineering (ICS 314) and its sequel course (ICS 414) have been some of the best courses I have taken in my Bachelors curriculum. This is due to being based mostly on applying skills, as opposed to more theory-based content, which I find a lot of ICS courses to be like. However, I think that ICS 414 happened to be a bit of a harder course.
A New Tech Stack
One of the biggest changes in this course was the tech stack. In ICS 314, we had used JavaScript with Meteor, React, and MongoDB. However, in ICS 414, we had used TypeScript with Nextjs, React, and PostgreSQL. At the time of writing this, I am unsure of which tech stack I prefer. Although I will say that in the current market, the latter stack might be more advantageous as far as finding a job goes. Ultimately, moving from one tech stack to another (although somewhat similar) proved to me that I am able to adapt to any programming need. Because at the end of the day, I am very likely going to have to switch languages, tech stacks, etc. sometime in my career.
Working With a Larger Team, for a Client
In ICS 414, we were put into random groups of eight people. Having a bigger team definitely had its challenges, but I am very grateful that everyone was working hard and putting effort into the project. Having a well-defined task list and project task board on Github made this much easier and much more manageable. In addition to having a larger team, our task was to create a financial dashboard that met the needs of Spire Hawaii, our client. This was very different from ICS 314, in that we need to meet their needs, not what we think they need or would want. For instance, there might be things that we think are optimal or the best experience, but when talking to the client, it isn’t something they would use.
Final Thoughts
All in all, I’m very grateful to have taken this course, and I would recommend other UH Manoa students to do the same. This was a great way to see what it is like working with a large team for a real client project. Although it wasn’t like we were getting paid, it was still a glimpse into what real-world development is like. I hope to go into software engineering in my career, so this class fits right in with my plan.