Geoghegan

Name: Joe Geoghegan

Guiding Question: Do I want to be a electrical engineer? --this is what I signed up for and I have found this does not fit the description of what I am doing. A more fitting one is- Do I want to have a career as a database developer/designer.

(optional) Use this space to list possible activities, tasks, experiences. Remember everything you do should help you answer your Guiding Question.

(Required) This plan is a “best guess” as to what you and your mentor think you will be doing. It is not meant to be a hard and fast schedule for your Exploration. The plan should illustrate how you intend to complete a minimum of 80 hours.


 * = Date ||= Location/Activity ||= Number of Hours ||
 * = First week ||= In office working/learning filemaker ||= 25 ||
 * = Second Week ||= Launching filemaker database ||= 25 ||
 * = third week ||= Office work and demonstrating filemaker and lights and going to light show. ||= 30 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
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 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||
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Journal: Journal one: Plan of action was spot on first week, 25 hours. The best answer I could give after a week is that I would enjoy having a job like this but I would need to learn a lot more to excel in a job of this field. Mentor and pretty much everyone in the business are incredibly impressed at the pace at which I learn and work. Learned a few of the ins and outs of a program called Filemaker 11 which is a tool to create interactive databases that can be accessed from anywhere. Also I had lunch with a out of office consultant (and family friend) who does the same work I am doing and he is impressed at the work and direction I am heading, (he also says that a person who can really do what I am learning can freelance and make easily $250 an hour which I found interesting). I am enjoying myself and I am having fun designing a database efficiently.

Journal 2: I misheard when light fair was going to be so I was five hours short this week but next week is 5 hours longer because it is that week. Same answer as first week. My meetings with my mentor are actually meetings with the entire business to go over what everyone has done and what are their future goals, I was able to give a time line and once again everyone was impressed. Launched the database. It is pretty awesome. Business now has two ipads to work on the database. The next task I was given was the biggest by far and definitely challenged my skills, I gave it a time line for Thursday knowing I would miss almost all of Wednesday

Journal 3: I was able to complete my 80 hours by the third week. Same answer as the first two journal entries, but I will also add that another creative mind like my own made the parts that I am basing my own work off of. I may not understand what the other person was doing when they were creating these parts but when I found I had to be creative to make a cheating "fake" way of doing what I want I also found the other person cheated just as much as I did and that creativity that a person can show is very intriguing. People applauded during the meeting when I said I was actually able to complete all of what I said I was going to complete under the time frame. They where also all very excited about the possibilities of benefit for their company that could to taken from what I have done. I finished all my big project by Tuesday because I was able to spend some hours, after I usually had to go, working because Tennis got canceled. Wednesday morning, before we went to light fair, I was giving a demonstration of the database and I ran into a serious glitch and ended up having to stop the demonstration to fix it. I wasn't able to fix it before we left and I had to worry about it all day and night. I fixed it Thursday morning after working on it for another 30 minutes. It shows that no matter how small of a change you made, or even if you where just polishing it to make it look nice, always retest afterwards because something could have changed. I was able to finish it on time but it was more stressful because I got too cocky and was moving too fast. I taught people how to use it in the field Friday.

SSP: I am not surprised you are good at this job. From the first year I taught you, I could tell you were a natural engineer. Glad that you are getting so much out of it. I love the lesson that you learned about testing your changes no matter how small!