Well, at least the final RARARANTRARA related to the senior project. So, yesterday we presented our project and handed in our binder. The paper ended up being a total of 203 pages including appendices. Take a look!

So, that said.. I’ve got a mini rant, or a wrap-up rant.

Our last meeting (EVER!) went pretty much how ALL of the meetings should have gone. All we had left to do was compile the paper and finalize the paper, and the powerpoint, and decide who was going to present which parts.

In the meeting before, Project Manager was stuck out of town so the rest of us met to finish up separate parts of the paper. Project Manager attended via AIM. I was sifting through source code and making it neat, as well as typing up test plans and stuff to send off to Project Manager to do. Meanwhile F5 took screenshots for the user guide, that later she and Lone Male split up to take home to do parts of the user guide.

So, this all sounds great, work was broken up and stuff got done outside a meeting, right? Well kinda. I had sent an email asking that the user guide be up over the weekend so that Project Manager could put it in the paper before our meeting so that we only had to finalize the paper and do the presentation at our last meeting. So yeah, by Monday it was all there, so I guess thats good.

Come time for our meeting, the guide parts that were there had to be re-arranged because they were out of order. So, F5 took that on.. merging the 2 and organizing them according to the website. Project Manager and I hadn’t really looked at the docs prior to the final thing being handed over to go into the paper.. and it was kinda messed up. Project Manager asked F5 to format it a little better, with no page breaks so it could fit more easily into the paper. F5 wasn’t happy - at all. But made an attempt to fix, but really didn’t fix.

Also, let me throw a note in here that at the beginning of the meeting Project Manager had mentioned to the group at large that we would need to go to dinner around 5:30-6 because I needed to let my boyfriend’s dog out (he lives in the area). We are thinking this will be the first time ALL semester that we get to go to dinner first. We. Were. Wrong. At about 4:30 or so, F5 says.. I’m starving so I’m gonna go grab food and bring it back. Once she leaves we just kinda look at each other baffled like.. even when we SAY we’re gonna go early we STILL don’t get to go first. But it was ok. When she came back, a little while later we left. Whatever.

F5 worked on the powerpoint while we were at dinner. When we got back, Project Manager and I worked on making sure all the parts of the paper were accounted for.. and the parts of the appendices. We looked over the powerpoint in the new group study room on the big screen, agreed on it, went back to our room and decided who was going to say what.

I mentioned that our last status report was due that night, so we all started working on our individual status reports. F5 mentions that she didn’t realize that we *HAD* status reports all semester! She said.. I did like 2 of these, I didn’t know there were more. And she says.. I wonder if Professor will let me back-do them for some kind of credit. 

We also find out that she asked Professor about putting status reports in the paper, which ‘reminded’ him (according to his email) to let us all know that we no longer needed individual status reports in the paper because he had been collecting them on angel all term. I guess she might have said at that time she just didn’t have them, or complained the Project Manager was asking for them and she didn’t know why (even though in her email she clearly stated we need these for the paper). So now we know sorta why or how it came about that we didn’t need them. Oh fn well.

We left, and agreed that Project Manager and I would print the paper at my place the next night. We were finished, and even after stopping to visit boyfriend, I was home by 10:30. That is earlier than any other night when I don’t have time to stop and visit boyfriend!

So, lets talk about presentation day - again. :) So, we find out that we need to include in our powerpoint any diagrams that we revised. So, Project Manager and I revised the powerpoint to add the diagrams. We had to change the theme because the one that F5 had done used an image for the title area of the slides and of course we didn’t have the image. So we picked a nice theme, knowing F5 was gonna throw a fit when she saw that the powerpoint was different. But we didn’t have time to care, we made these edits at 12:30, class started at 1. We had to turn in b&w printouts of the powerpoint because the color ones I printed were obviously not right anymore. 

We had to present last because, as usual, F5 couldn’t leave work a half hour early to get to class on time. So, since we didn’t get a chance to say anything BEFORE we presented.. on the way up to the front Project Manager tells F5 that we had to add on to the beginning, and change the layout, but everything else was the same from her first part through the end. First thing she (F5) said is you could have asked me for the image. Project Manager says, we did this today at 12:30 there was NO time. She grumbled something to Lone Male I think, I heard part of it.. something about they changed my layout or something. Whatever. We got through it! IT IS  DOOOONE!

We could hear her asking Professor about turning in her status reports late because she ‘didn’t know about them’. He says, yeah the drop boxes are still up. LET ME JUST SAY.. I took points off of mine (and Project Manager’s) for being like a DAY late. Even left a comment on mine about the one over spring break being late, saying Angel is an internet app. SO HERS will be like a MONTH late. At a point for one or two days, hers are worthless. BUT, he told her to turn them in. WHY!? Does he contemplate giving her credit? Or does he just want to see what kind of status reports she is going to turn in considering these were due a month to almost two months ago.. and that Project Manager and I have talked to him since then about her lack of contribution.. AND we mention it in EVERY status report and team evaluation that we turn in. 

I have this feeling (AND IT SUCKS) that he is catering to her because she is the lone MIS person and had to be put on an IST team. I DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR HER! AT FN ALL! If you don’t know something, you learn something, or at least you attempt.

During the presentations, the group that had 2 SRA majors and 1 IST major, they talked about the challenges they faced from the beginning even getting a project settled. The SRA people stated that they had no programming background, had never seen the diagrams or written any code, BUT that they learned something about making a website and writing code, etc. The IST person said he learned a lot about security and risk potential. That is what our group should have been. Everyone should have learned something. NO ONE.. OK WRONG! PROJECT MANAGER learned something of value! You know what F5 learned!? THAT TESTING IS IMPORTANT! That is all. Testing. Woo!

So yeah, thats all. I have a bad feeling that Professor is going to pass her on like principal or something. I don’t think he is going to pay attention to our status reports, or team evals, or anything.. even the fact that hers are like a month late or whatever and obviously going to be made up all in one night.

We shall see. I will ask what she gets. In casual conversation on FB. ;)

/end RARARANTRARA