BYU Junior Core Review

I started the BYU Information Systems program in Fall 2019. To give some context of how I found the best major on campus is somewhat of a journey. I started BYU in the fall of 2017, fresh off a mission to Bacolod, Philippines 🇵🇭. I drew inspiration from my Mission President and tried my hand at Civil Engineering. Unfortunately, I couldn't fathom taking Calculus II and other math classes down the road.

The next semester, I looked into pre-med with the hopes of being an ophthalmologist. Again, I couldn't get imagine taking more Chemistry and eventually oChem classes so after returning home for the summer, I looked into business, specifically, Accounting.

I loved my Accounting 200 class. I had finally found a class that made sense to me and something that I was good at. I enrolled in Accounting 310, and as part of the pre-reqs, IS 201. While I loved my accounting classes, the idea of diving into company financials and audits and taxes wasn't particularly appealing to me -- even if I was good at it.

On the other hand, my IS class was interesting, something new, and fueled my interest and learning like never before. I took IS 303 -- Introduction to JavaScript -- in Spring 2019, and absolutely loved the programming and problem-solving aspect of IS. I applied to both the Accounting and Information Systems programs in the summer, and luckily was accepted to both.

Junior Core

The Junior Core kicked off with the classic "EY Case". This was a week-long simulation of working as cyber consultants for the firm and analyzing results from the penetration tests done by another team. Our job was to suggest a course of action for the company as well as a new security strategy for them moving forward. This was a huge learning experience for me and my team because we really had no idea what we were doing.

Fall Junior Core

During the fall, I took 4 courses that were a part of the standard curriculum for the Core. These classes were:

1. IS 401 - Systems Analysis and Design. This class was all about understanding business processes and requirements and then designing entire applications and systems that would work for business.
2. IS 402 - Database Systems. This class focused primarily on SQL -- functions, subqueries, ctes, as well as normalization and designing ERDs. I learned a ton in this class that I still use a lot in my job today.
3. IS 403 - Principles of Business Programming. This was the hardest class of the semester for me. We learned C# and ASP.NET. I struggled with understanding the MVC logic and coding in such a strongly-typed language. While still a good experience, I wish I would have understood more in that class. I could have done a lot more if I was taking that class now as opposed to then.
4. IS 405 - Project Mangement. This was an interesting course. There was a huge textbook and guidelines for Project Management and I didn't really ever see myself needing that information. With my perspective now however, I see that the further you progress in your career, the more you move away from technical work and towards managerial work. That means being a project/product manager, stakeholder, etc. I should probably review my notes from this course.

We finished off the semester with Intex (Integrated Exercise). After a long week of building, we felt like we had developed a solid MVP. Our assumptions were flawed and were quickly pointed out during our presentation -- but I look back now and it seems so crazy with how much I have grown.

Winter Junior Core

In the winter, there was another 12 credits worth of classes to take.

1. IS 404 - Network and Cloud Infrastructure. The physical networking/hardware unit of this class was somewhat interesting, but I continue to be intrigued by the Cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) even now. I hope to continue to get better at Cloud Ops/Infrastructure.
2. IS 413 - Enterprise Application Development. This was probably in my top 5 most valuable courses I took at BYU. Dr. Albrecht taught us DRF (Django-Rest Framework) for the backend, and React for the frontend. I'm not sure if they are continuing React in the core now, but what a valuable skill to learn. I love React and I learned so much that semester.
3. IS 414 - Security & Controls. This was an introductory course to security and managin strategies for firm cyber practices. Kind of dry, focused on frameworks, procedures, and strategy, but still interesting.
4. IS 415 - Machine Learning. In this class, I first learned Python. Another extremely valuable skill that I use in my job almost every day. Learned a lot about algorithms, data cleaning and transformation, and how to deploy algorithms to enable continual learning and improvement (beginning of CI/CD).

After Intex II, my group and I placed second overall! Wow, we were so impressed. We developed a React/Django machine learning application and were really impressed with what we accomplished.

Wrap-up

And that is a wrap of the Junior Core! I had a great year, I grew significantly in my skills and understanding, and ended up doing well enough to be accepted to the MISM.