Vaughn Silverman

This class is required for the M.S. degree in Computer Science. Although offered in a shorter span of time (Summer semesters are 4 weeks shorter than Fall or Spring), Mr. Silverman (M.S., not PhD) presided over a thoughtfully planned and well-managed class. I had heard both good and bad about him from other students prior to signing up for this class; however, as I want to graduate soon, and since Mr. Silverman is the only instructor who teaches this class, I had no choice. I AM RELIEVED TO SAY THAT I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED.

TEXTBOOK: Schach – Object-Oriented Engineering - ISBN 0-07-239559-1 - should come with Code Warrior disk, which we didn’t use.

SYLLABUS: Comprehensive and detailed with regards to all aspects of the course, without being overwhelming. However, Silverman included a listing of a number of ancillary, recommended reading, texts, and also suggested that students be members of IEEE and the ACM…. Unreasonable, given the time and effort constraints.

QUIZZES: Four total, all given in the first 5 weeks of class. Silverman has 3 versions of each quiz (actually, 3 different quizzes) each class. He allegedly did this to prevent cheating. However, the quizzes were all the way from ridiculously easy and not relevant (“create a ‘for’ loop….”) to the very difficult. Quizzes are given at the start of class. Another issue with the quizzes was that Silverman expected us to be acquainted with the whole text, and we weren’t too clear on what he would quiz us on, even given the topics scheduled in the Syllabus.

PROGRAMMING: NONE. But you will really learn how to use Microsoft WORD.

EXAMS: Originally a take-home Midterm and Final, 4 questions for each exam, based on both the Schach text and class notes. However, given that we had a Team Presentation and a Software Design Document due at the end of the semester (a shorter semester), Silverman dropped the Final. RECOMMENDATION: STICK WITH START-OF-CLASS QUIZZES AND DROP THE MIDTERM AND FINAL ALTOGETHER.

PROJECTS: A Software Requirements Specification document (SRS) and a Software Design Document (SDD). Silverman created teams of 4 people and had as the subject matter a “vehicle collision avoidance system”. These were VERY labor intensive and frustrating, for a number of reasons. First, almost no one in the class had had any experience creating these software engineering documents. A LOT of frustrastion resulted from this. RECOMMENDATION: SUPPLY TEMPLATES FOR THESE DOCUMENTS RIGHT UP FRONT. Secondly, the teams themselves were hampered by a n umber of problems: lack of good reading and writing skills by many of the foreign students, laziness, ego clashes, etc.

TEAM PRESENTATION: A Powerpoint-driven class presentation on a topic chosen by Silverman for each recreated Team. Each Team was given 45 minutes to make a class presentation at the end of the semester.

TEAMS: Silverman put everyone in Teams of 4 people. My first team was a disaster. I tried to get everybody to agree to meeting face-to-face once a week, but two of the others were lazy-ass boneheads who wanted to do everything by e-mail. This proved DISASTROUS since the last member of the team was an Arab who had poor English skills (he ended up dropping the course). In addition, one of the two that wanted to do everything by “long-distance” (i.e. e-mail) was a complete fat sack of shit. His only contribution was saying that “we were on track” and “everything looks good” and screwing around with the bulletpoints in the document. A complete waste of space. The other one of the two acted as though her personal life came first – she flat out told us that she had to do a breast cancer walk-a-thon, and that because it would take all weekend, she couldn’t really do anything for a required homework assignment. (Thanks, BITCH!) Finally, the “Yahoo Group” that fatso set up was under his complete control – NEVER agree to a “Yahoo Group”.

I got tired of those assholes and I bitched like the Devil at Silverman, and demanded a change of Team. Silverman urged me to “pull out the best” of all the other Team members. But the Arab who spoke poor English was a lost cause (and regardless, did no work) and the other two turds kept playing politics games. I even ended up getting into an “e-mail war” with one of them.

My second team fared better, but only a little bit. THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE OF ARABIC AND INDIAN HERITAGE GOING TO SCHOOL AT NORTHEASTERN, TAKING MASTERS CLASSES, WHO SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO READ AND WRITE ENGLISH WELL. My second team had two Arabs, and they were USELESS.

TEAM EVALUATIONS: Everyone had to evaluate himself and his Team Members at Midterm and at the end of the semester. Silverman actually graded this.

TEACHING ABILITY: Silverman surprised me with his ease of speaking and depth of knowledge of the subject matter. However, the only real substantive experience that he talked about in class was his year and a half at NASA. Having had people in the industry with substantial experience come in and lecture would have been nice.

OVERALL: A LOT of frustration leading right up to the Midterm and the SRS. One of my closest classmates was ready to drop, given the slacking that occurred on his Team. However, I told him to stick it out. To his benefit and relief, Silverman told everybody a few weeks before the end of the semester that everyone was on track to get a grade of A. I don’t think that he should have done that. Although it took a lot of pressure off of everyone (including not having the Final Exam), it unfortunately led to a LOT of slacking. Indeed, from the way that the Team Presentations went, and also the grading of each others’ SDDs, I find it hard to believe that anyone will come away from this class with a grade of less than an A. I mean, it seems as though Silverman’s focus is more on having us get experience “going through the motions” and broadening our knowledge/experience base in general, rather than worrying about whether we “got it” absolutely right.

I learned a lot in this class, and in a weird sort of way, I enjoyed it, as frustrating as it was. Silverman managed it as best as he could, and I think that it was managed reasonably well.