The Last Dance (Part 2)
20 Dec 2024
My Final Ride in ICS 414
This class was one of the best classes I took at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. This experience was one of the most useful and helpful experiences that I’ve had. Throughout the 16 weeks of developing this project with my teammates, I learned a lot of useful skills that I can apply to my professional career. Here are my thoughts about my experience in ICS 414.
The Project
The main purpose of this project we were assigned to create for the client is to create a financial dashboard that allows the company to edit and audit the data in a nice and easy to follow user interface. At least, it didn’t seem that difficult, as we thought we could just import the data, add some graphs to display the data, and call it a day. What we didn’t realize was how difficult importing the data itself was. It took a while to import the data and make it into a readable format that could be stored easily in the database. Displaying the data was the easy part, since all of the data were integers and can be easily read to make some nice looking graphs that the user can adjust for their projections. We also made it so that users have roles like admin, auditors, etc, so that each person has the proper permissions when they access each data point.
We also created a thing called scenarios, where users can create multiple scenarios using the same set of data. They can use it to see what would happen in different scenarios, like adjusting volatility, adjusting different numbers in the data without changing the original scenario, so that they can form forecasts and projections based on the scenarios. It was a very good idea that took a lot of time to implement.
As computer science students, it took a lot of time to come up with how to project these data and took a lot of time in creating the formulas for these scenarios. It was very difficult to grasp these different economic terminologies used in the spreadsheet, like volatility or taxes. But it was fun learning about these since I’m also an economics student, so seeing these terms used in the real world and applying them was really interesting. We also added a lot of other features like having a template spreadsheet to input data in, export data sheets, and two factor-authentication for the users. Overall, I’d say we did a pretty good job in terms of creating a product in a short-span of time. If we had more time, say another semester, I feel like we could have made a fully-fledged product that can be used in the real world.
My Personal Experience
For me, I feel like I did what I could with the skills I had. At the beginning, I had no clue how to even start with what we used since I had no experience using Semantic UI or any good experience developing frontend since I’m more of a backend developer. But as time went on, I created the functionality to upload files and export files. It was tough trying to siphon the data out of the spreadsheet since it connected with another spreadsheet, but in the end, we managed to make it work. I got a lot more comfortable with Semantic, React, and JavaScript, and I feel a lot more comfortable with developing the frontend. Towards the end of the project timeline, I felt like I was starting to fall out since I was very muted with my teammates, but I’m glad I had teammates that were able to pull me up in the end.
Professional Development
The best part about this class is actually meeting with the client. It didn’t feel artificial and I was actually able to discuss and get feedback from the client themselves which was Spire Hawaii LLP, an advisory and financial consulting firm. It was actually very cool to see other groups present their project and gain some inspiration from them for our project. We weren’t working against the whole class, but progressing forward with them, pitching and implementing ideas and solving problems together to create a better product to present to the client. It was a cool experience that I never got to experience before.
Conclusion
I highly recommend taking this class. It is an easy class if you decide to put the effort into it and not flake out. It gives you actual development experience with real world problems that forces you to solve and make up your own solution in a given timeline. Personally, I think this experience will definitely help me in the future with my professional career and allow me to pursue far into the field. I’d like to thank my teammates, Spire Hawaii LLP for allowing us to create a product for you, and Professor Moore for hosting this class.