Systems Week
Systems week was a valuable experience in my engineering degree, and certainly one of the most memorable weeks of university. Usual courses taken as a part of my specialisation are largely theoretical, and may not be sufficient to develop certain necessary for engineers. Systems courses aim to bridge this disparity between industry needs and specialisation courses taught at university. Systems week is definitely a highlight in the system course. In particular, it provides students the opportunity to work in large groups to tackle a project, similar to those engineers may encounter in the industry.
Prior to the systems project, I had not worked on a project with groups greater than half a dozen members, whereas each systems project group consisted of around 30 group members. Many groups decided to split the group into smaller subgroups. Through this experience, I came to appreciate the importance of communication in a group. At the start of the project week, the division of tasks amongst the subgroups were not very clear cut. Two or three subgroups within the group were …show more content…
Our group considered many potential risks and black swan events, and devised strategies to mitigate these risks. As we iteratively considered these risks, our solution became increasingly robust. The official black swam event released by the systems course management team did minimal impact to our solution. Often many of the projects I have completed in other courses quite limited in scope, and would perform well under very isolated ideal conditions. However, the real world is full of variables and unexpected events. Robust solutions that can withstand reasonably unexpected events are more valuable and practical in the industry. In future projects, I would spare some time to consider about which sudden changes may happen, and whether my proposed solutions would still be