CS3216: What, why and how?

School's starting on Monday! And with it, our first CS3216 Lecture, and Show & Tell~ But... what SHOULD I expect from CS3216 anyway? Frankly, I have no idea~ ^^

CS3216 is a cross-faculty module where people from all walks of life work together to develop new computer software applications to be deployed in different platforms, like Facebook, Gears, and Wave. Interestingly, that's where most definitions stop. Something about CS3216 defies precise definition... Perhaps it's the diversity of talent in the module, or the individual motivation that drives these people, and the chance to work with people having very different world views, that causes most (if not all) of the seniors to promote the module to their juniors

I applied for CS3216 with the primary intention to learn. Learning new programming languages and methods, learning design and learning animation, these were important, but could have been done on my own. What I feel cannot be so easily learnt elsewhere in school is the collaboration and cohesiveness between a team, especially a team who has just met, and working to push ourselves and our product to the limits of our capabilities, while under a strict deadline. These are lessons you cannot get from any book, any classroom, any lecture theatre. These have to be experienced with your own hands and eyes.

As I was beginning this post, I was listening to Lea Michelle's cover of the song Taking Chances (originally by Platinum Weird, also covered by Céline Dion). The lyrics for its chorus rather accurately capture my how I feel towards my second semester in NUS, and also towards CS3216... Take a chance, and jump off the edge, never knowing if there's solid ground below.

But what do you say to taking chances,
What do you say to jumping off the edge?
Never knowing if there's solid ground below
Or hand to hold, or hell to pay,
What do you say,
What do you say?

Here's to a good semester ahead~ ^^