MINOR FIELDTRIP

FTS (Field Trip and Seminars) subject composes the Major and Minor events. Which in the Major Fieldtrip it was done from 7^th to 11^th day of September, 2015 and was held in Luzon particularly in Manila.  Events were successfully happened at that time and probably majority of us learned a lot from the experienced. After the major events it was said that Minor fieldtrip must follow and on the 23th day of January it was done and held at the School Social Hall.

As early as 8:00 am – 9:00 am it was Saturday then, students wrote their names on the attendance paper for the program preparation.  During the registration many of us prepared themselves for the program because they all have their activities afterwards. Here are the flow events of the Minor Fieldtrip Program:

Part 1-

8:00- 9:00 am –   Registration

9:00 – 9:30 am- Opening Program

-          National Anthem

-          Opening Remarks

              9:30- 10:30 am -  1^st talk by Mr. Ralph Gideon

            10:30 am – 10: 45 am – 2^nd talk by Ms. Shannen Yu Spar

            11:45 am to 12:45 pm – Lunch Break

            Part 2-

            12:45 – 1:00 pm – afternoon attendance

            1:00 – 4: 00 pm Hackathon / Pitching for Startup Competition

            4: 00 – 4: 30 pm – Awarding and Closing Remarks

            4: 30 – 5: 00 pm – Restoration and Master Ceremony by Rey Neal Badalo

On the Part 1 of the program, Mr. Ralph Gideon is the first speaker and he gave us knowledge about Graphic tools: Fundamentals of Design. Base on his presentation he gave emphasis of what does design really means and how we are or we should apply it on a certain scenario on our websites or other stuff.  During his presentation he said “Designing is equals to Problem solving” which means when we apply to design something it made the thing so important and usable by the user because it will became more inviting or attractive to use. And he also gave us the difference between artist and designers. He also let us to answer his question on “thus artist and designers are the same?” then, some of the students said Yes and least said No, but the truth was according to his research “artist! =designers” or “artist is not equal to designers” because Artist think outside the box about the art that they are going to do , while Designers thinks any possible designs that they think need to apply. The bottom-line of his presentation was Designer is really important to a certain company who’s product or services are to design a website or any related design items. He also tackled about the 7 elements of Foundation of a Design.

And below are the important content of a design:
1. Balance – has 2 types; Symmetrical Formal Balance and Asymmetrical informal balance.

2. Rhythm

3. Emphasis

4. Unity (Harmoney or Uniformity)

5. Variety

6. Proportion

The first speaker also gave the student the qualifications of being a good Designer. First, good designers read or brows books, pdf, tutorials, and etc. Second, you must know the basic. Third, you must know your limit. Fourth, do some experiment. Fifth, ask a lot and accept criticisms from others. And lastly, learn to communicate. These are just steps that the speakers wanted the students to learn about designing.

The second speaker was Ms. Shannen Yu Spar she’s a UI/UX Designer at Ingenuity Company. She talks about the Front end Web Development. She talks more on what are the difference between the front –end developer and the back –end developer. On her presentation she perfectly clear that front end is also referred to as the client side and sometimes considered “web design”. The back end of the web industry is often called the server –side.

Her emphasis what she usually doing as a UI/UX designer is that user interface (UI) Designer is basically a visual designer and generally focused on design. That they’re not usually involved in the implementation of design, but they might know light HTML and CSS so they can communicate their ideas more effectively to the developers. And while a UX (User Experience) designers work in the front end and study and research how people use the sites and make changes through a lot of testing. A front end developer may be required to have a gasp on testing, as well as be well versed in HTML , CSS, and JavaScript. Then what she said about Back –end or the “server side” was, it basically how the site works, updates and changes. This refers to everything the user can’t see in the browser, like databases and servers.

Usually people who work on the back end are called programmers or developers. She made to clear that back end developers are mostly worried about things like security, structure and content management. They also the one who is required to create dynamic site which, dynamic site like Blogs , Facebook , and others is a site that constantly changing and updated in real-time.  Ms. Spar also recommends Boilerplates for bootstrap and html, Sass or {Less} compilers for CSS. 

A good front – end developer would also have to work in collaborating, interpreting, compiling, testing, optimizing, and researching for their websites to be more functional to the user. After she delivered her topics question and answer was followed and a lot of the students gave her questions that must be answered by her according to her experienced and knowledge. One of the students question was “what makes a person a good developer? ” then she answered that ,“ A good Developers must have a clean program flow so that if someone or anyone else will follow his works he will understand well the program and dynamically do the progress, and that’s what makes a person as a Good developer ”.

So much for the second speaker, the third speaker was Mr. Nikko Comidoy who is a former student of the University. He is a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology student. Then according to him, he just wanted to share what he experienced about the competition that they won in their previous college life. He exclaimed that those competitions really gave them inspiration to make difference and achieved their goals after graduated. He said the events gave him a big impact on dealing his fair to pitch his idea and fight for his confidence to put in a higher level. Somehow he said that Mr. Randy Gamboa is a big part of his journey of what he is right now because of the confidence he built during those events.

After the 3^rd speaker we had our lunch that we enjoyed the most. Then, the Part 2 of the program immediately started in which the Hackathon and Pitching for Startup Competition was held. I saw everyone seriously preparing themselves about the competition because there are prizes to be given to those who are going to win. Many of us also have a cool feeling of having no competition to join because we are done already the pitching during our previous subjects. As what I have observed a lot of the student was very nervous about the Pitching Competition because they were chosen to have a group in different clusters. There were 4 clusters made, which the 1^st cluster was placed at the right side of the hall, and then the 2^nd cluster was in the center bottom of the hall, then the 3^rd was placed in the left side, and the 4^th cluster was at the center stage. Time past by some students was relieve because they have done there pitch within just a minute or less than by that. Afterwards, when everyone was done we waited for the announcement of who are those people chosen their ideas as top that are going to pitch at the stage. The competition is quite so enjoyable because everyone feels like their ideas were chosen and when the announcement declares those top ideas they keep on laughing for knowing that they didn’t expect it to be chosen.

What I learned?

I learned that all the speakers are very passionate of the skills and jobs that they have now. They all have the knowledge about the fields that they studied. During the seminar I learned that Front- End is everything that involved with what the user sees, including the design and some languages like HTML and CSS. A common front end job title is “Web designer” who designs websites.

What I liked?

I liked the moment that mostly of us participated in the event especially in the question and answer portion. I liked that they enjoyed the activities and they achieved what must be done. What also surprises us was the extra fund that we don’t know it will distributed back again to us, because we expected that our funds is almost spent through the whole event but we’re mistaken , so it was really surprising that it was given back . For me as part of the subject (FTS) I ‘am so thankful and grateful that the officers are trusted and honest, and they really gave their best just to make those events happened, so a lot of thanks to them. And also to our facilitators who always guided us throughout these events, we thank you very much.

What I didn’t like?

I didn’t liked that the speakers didn’t further more explain some deeper aspects that we didn’t still know, instead of tackling the most important they just more on telling their experiences during their early stages in their programs.

Hackathon and Start-up Pitching Competition

Many students participated also in Hackthon, especially those Computer Science Students who had the ability to compete with their skills using programming languages. The scenario was, on the other dimension of the Social hall while almost of the IT students was on their Pitching elimination the Hackathon competition was also conducted by those competitors . On the other side I saw their faces were in a serious manner to look at the computers because they really made to focus on how they are going to solve their problems within the given time. They seem also quite because it involves logical and analysis as what really it is. While in the Pitching competition most of as listened to the top chosen pitcher on the stage, as what I have observed the competition is tough to be decided due to they all have nice, cool, and unique ideas that many would chose. Even the judges have lots of question about the idea they were pitching, because it means that judges really do understand their ideas with a given minutes to pitch whole the things that needed to clear out. Hours passed by, both competitions were done in a given period of time. All the students really enjoyed the seminar not just because of the food, but also the knowledge they gain during the event. I know many would probably made that day memorable for them because of the experienced that they encountered and some speakers to be known about.

APPENDIX

What can I recommend for the improvement of the advance seminar program of USEP?

            For me, I would recommend that Minor fieldtrip must be held at the company’s place so that we can see the actual things they do and they used, because it’s better to learn with new things we see.

My advice to those who will take their advance seminar program in the near future

My advice to those who are going to take their advance seminar program, choose the responsible officials to pass all the possible requirements for both seminars to take on the said date and places to go, so that everything would be interesting and memorable. Everyone should participate to experience more about the technological field and interest of each other.