ExCEL Report 2 - Code on Weekend

Date: 11th December 2020
Venue: Google Meet
Organizer: Persatuan Mahasiswa Sains Komputer (PERSAKA)
University: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor

• Thinking Skills
• Scholarship
• Adaptability

As a Participant of Code on Weekend
(refer to the Certificate)

Code on Weekend is a coding program which is about a new coding language called Go Programming Language for all of the participants. Go Language or Golang is predicted to be one of the best trends in the future and this language is more easy-understandable for new programmers compared with others. I had joined this program to learn a new programming language from the experienced speaker, Dr. Afnizanfaizal.

The Graduate Attribute that is focused on is thinking skills which requires the participants to think crtically for learning Go Programming Language. Besides, scholarship is focused on to seek relevant information about Go Programming Language. Adaptability is also focused on to adapt a new programming language environment.   

All of the participants took part in this two and a half hour lesson to learn about the Go Language that can be applied to the creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the use of Machine Learning (ML). During the lesson, Dr Afnizanfaizal exposed and explained the basics of Golang and introduced two systems which both were coded by using Golang. 

For self-reflection in this program, the impact of this activity on the development of the students’ Graduate Attributes is improving our thinking skills and problem solving. We have to define and analyze the coding problems to look for alternative ideas and solutions. Besides, the ability of scholarship will be enhanced since we have to manage research information about ML and AI system for Go Programming Language. Furthermore, we can also have enough adaptability to adapt the new programming environment in the future.

From this activity, I have learnt the fundamentals of Golang and also able to understand the operation of AI and ML systems by using Golang. This may broaden my coding experience as an additional lesson for me. As we know, there is an increasing competition in securing jobs among fresh graduates, therefore acquiring additional technical skills will increase the chances of being recruited during their internship or after graduation.

The challenge for this activity is it is difficult to understand the differences of ML and AI system from the start, but luckily the speaker, Dr Afnizanfaizal spent much time to explain about these two systems detailly which both were coded by using Golang.