Merry Glawe

About Me

My name is Merry, and I am a student, intern, and peer tutor at Hawkeye Community college, currently working toward my Associate of Applied Science degree for Web Programming & Development. I enjoy creating things with code - primarily web applications - and seek to learn something new every day! I also take pleasure in troubleshooting. I find it fascinating to look at a problem, find what makes it tick, isolate what's gone wrong, and then fix it at its source.

Education

Associate of Applied Science, Network Administration & Engineering
Hawkeye Community College
August 2018 - May 2021

Associate of Applied Science, Web Programming & Development
Hawkeye Community College
August 2020 - May 2022

Skills

Programming Languages

PHP
SQL
JavaScript
HTML
CSS
.NET C#
Python
Visual Basic

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Tools & Platforms

Git
Visual Studio
phpMyAdmin
cPanel
PostMan
Notepad++
Visual Studio Code

Portfolio

Featured Project - Website Builder

An image showing a webpage that displays information about several types of flowers.

An image showing a webpage that allows a user to create a page. It shows a form with the following field titles: 'Page Title', 'Who has access?', and 'Should the page be listed in the main navigation?'. At the bottom of the page, there are buttons labelled 'Add Text', 'Add Query', and 'Submit'.

An image showing a webpage that allows a user to create a page. It contains two fields. The first is labelled 'Add a portion of HTML to the page.' and shows a rich text editor beneath it. To its right is a red X to delete the field. The second field is labelled 'Add a SQL select query to the page. (You may only add ONE query at a time. The query must be a SELECT statement.' At the bottom of the page, there are buttons labelled 'Add Text', 'Add Query', and 'Submit'.

An image showing a webpage similar to the 'All Flowers' page, but it is deliberately broken. The page reports each of the errors to the logged-in admin user. There are two errors listed on the image. The first is when a user entered a DELETE query instead of a SELECT query, and the second is when a user entered a valid SELECT query along with other data.

Languages: PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML/CSS

The Website Builder is a group project that I and another intern created on behalf of Hawkeye Community College. It is intended to be a teaching tool for those new to web development, guiding them through the process of creating web pages with PHP and SQL, and allowing them to view what the results of their queries might look like on a web page.

My project partner and I planned the application together. I created an interactive tutorial page for the site which guides a user through the process of setting up the site step-by-step and notifies them if there are any errors in the data. I created a function which will display the results of any PDO SELECT query dynamically, no matter how many columns or results are returned. I added error checking and data validation to the project so if an error occurs with a query, the query is not processed and an admin receives the full details of the query while a standard user is told something went wrong without exposing the database. I also created pages to add and edit content, each of which use dynamic forms - a user can add SQL or basic text using a rich text editor to the page dynamically and may delete fields as needed.

Other Projects

MG Learn

MG Learn is a learning tool created primarily with PHP and SQL. It allows a user to create and study flashcards, organize flashcards into decks, post discussions, create notes, and create and view quizzes.

The start of this project was my first in-depth experience with PHP. I learned the basics of PHP while working on this, including how to submit data to a database and how to store data in the session. When I later expanded on the project, I learned how to create a dynamic form with JavaScript.

Visit the site!

Languages: PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML/CSS

To-Do Application

I created the To-Do Application on behalf of Hawkeye Community College as a work study. This application allows a user to create tasks for others or their own self. A user can opt-in to be notified that they were assigned to a task, and the application will notify them by email or SMS. After progress is made on a task, the person who assigned that task and any of the users assigned to do that task can update the task's progress to notify the status update to everyone.

While working on this project, I learned and practiced several soft skills - most importantly, communication. I spoke with my instructor to understand the aim of the project and how large the scope of the project would be, and reported back to her telling her what I had done and if I needed help. In a more technical sense, this project taught me how to send emails with the PHP mail() function.

Languages: PHP, SQL, HTML/CSS

The Ruins of Ralora

The Ruins of Ralora is an online, turn-based RPG that is still in the testing and development stages. In this game, a user can create a character, pick what class they would like to play, fight enemies, level up, and gain new abilities as they do.

While working on this project, I've learned a lot about how to plan ahead, even in uncertainty. It has also taught me quite a bit about JavaScript, PHP, and how to connect the two in ways that I hadn't done before.