Changes

Our interviewee,'''Isaac Griswold-Steiner''', is a changemaker whose passion for software development and leadership qualities, has allowed him to become President of Texas Tech's Software Development Club (SDC) and land internships at innovative technical companies such as Microsoft and National Instruments. With his advice, we are able to give you advice on how to teach students to build good software as a team.

Isaac is a software developer currently studying in Texas Tech, who learnt to code and found an interest in I&E while working for his startup in India. Although his startup eventually failed, he learned a lot about '''team designing''','''management''' and '''organizing '''that help him till date. His software experience includes '''machine learning''', '''data science''', and working with '''Linux kernel'''.

As President of Texas Tech's SDC, there aretwo main goals that Isaac focuses on:

While studying at Texas Tech, Isaac realized the education im<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">parted to the students was not a representation of what is actually demanded in the industries. For instance, the very basis for software developing lies in source control which was </span>taught as a part of syllabus during late years of education in college. Thus there is a difficulty in meeting the industrial standards, students aren't prepared and lack the skills required in an industry. Hence, with an aim to meet the industrial standards, he joined the existing Software Development Club of college. Different strategies like open ended contributions, structured layout for different teams in the club are applied with the ultimate aim of growing the passion of the students, create a student population which tries to seek information rather than stay contented with the redundant information fed to them in classes, and ultimately learns.

Isaac's club is divided into four (4) groups: Introduction to Python, Web App development, iOS development, and Machine Learning. If a club member is new to the Computer Science world, it is recommended that he or she start by joining the Introduction to Python course, and then work their way up to various groups.

Even with keeping these things in mind, the club tries to implement innovation, people pitch in their ideas in the beginning, or while brain storming, innovation or design thinking work is looked upon.This is something which their team is learning to focus on more.&nbsp;

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Isaac found that his support system was from his peers at Texas Tech, who kept him motivated to continue the club's legacy by being President. Although he had a strong support system, he began to see the SDC's retention rate decrease, and is now working to increase this rate for the future. There are two methods in which one can approach programming:

He was able to identify that some of the club members became frustrated when the utilization of the waterfall method became utilized in their development teams' projects. In addition, it is important to add more social events for the club to have instead of being fully dedicated to their projects (development life and social life balance). '''Studying DOES NOT = being social!!!!'''

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When building a successful, collaborative organization, Isaac states that leaders must foster&nbsp;'''curious''', '''failure accepting ideologies'''. He continuously enforces the idea that students have a duty to teach themselves using what's available online. Successful students must also engage in projects outside the classroom as long gone are the days where extracurricular activities are ranked less than classroom work. Students must also be willing to fail gracefully. Our current educational infrastructure pigeon holes students into believing that there is nothing worse than failure when that could not be less true. Failure leads to learning and personal growth which are imperative at keeping an organization fresh and growing.

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Texas Tech's Software Development Club is for EVERYONE who is a Texas Tech student. As mentioned in the Topic section, there are four separate project groups that a club member can join. It is recommended that everyone starts in a lower-level group such as "Intro to Python", and then progress to other projects in more advanced groups.

Using a tool, [https://www.hackerrank.com/ HackerRank], future/current software developers can be able to test their data structure and algorithmic skills. If club members have no idea what to do, they are provided support and instructed to download the proper tools and IDEs (Integrated Development Environments).

A typical club meeting starts by discussing announcements, encouraging students to attend and get involved with more technical events such as '''hackathons''', and there is open discussion. Directly after, club members start dedicating their time to their projects.