My Year in the Junior Core

I've been studying Information Systems (I Sys) for the past year now. Information Systems is a mix of business and computers. I learn both sides in order to help improve a company's system. These systems handle all their information, from sales to customer preferences. This field is ever changing and opens up opportunities to its graduates in all area of the work force, whether it is working with databases, programming or management. These are just a few of the many different areas I Sys students can go.

This past year we have been learning about systems. Specifically, how to create a system proposal, design and implement these systems into real working systems. Last semester we were given an assignment to put together a proposal for a fictional company. This semester we spent the whole 4 months designing and implementing this system. It includes a functioning in-store system that handles sales, rentals, and repairs, as well as creating management reports. We have also created a web based site that allows for online sales. Check it out here. Click on "Product". Type "c" in the search field. As you type AJAX will go to the database and return with information making changes to the web page with refreshing the whole page. Click on one of the results. AJAX again will populate the product info without refreshing the page. Click "buy". After you enter in information(PLEASE make it bogus information because this really will get saved into our database. I don't want your real information floating around) When you hit "checkout" all your information will get carried over to the confirmation page and our database will create the transaction as a sale! Cool huh!?

The only focus of this site was to learn to use AJAX, and how to add a back end database and connect that all together using a web server. It has been very challenging and very exciting. It seems simple enough; however, there is so much more than meets the eye. Many times I have come home to show Courtney what I have done and she is very supportive and excited for me, but she has a only a small idea of what went into making things function and work the way that they do.

I just wanted to share a little bit of what my life has been these past 8 months. I'm prepping for my presentation where we present our finished system to the client and hand them the system as well as almost 150 pages in system documentation. Wish me luck.