Project Update!
Since class on Thursday I have managed to make significant progress. I have finally formatted all of the data I plan to use into dictionaries. I have also started working on the class I made to incorporate user input.
Roadblocks ahead: time, energy, confusing structure of user input
Resources to get past roadblocks: the internet, a helpful TA 
, determination, hard-headedness
My milestones are definitely ambitious based on what I’ve accomplished and what I hope to accomplish. There is a good chance not all will be accomplished by Wednesday like I had hoped. As per usual, the difficulty of my plan was not anticipated, but I have gained a much better understanding of data organization and parsing dictionaries! I don’t think I could have gained these skills otherwise.
In the next few days I am going to get my user input organized and figure out how to loop through back to the main menu so the user can use the program multiple times. Once I figure the structure for that I can keep on adding more “menu items”, which so far have been easier to accomplish than other tasks.
Defined Milestones
What will my program be able to do?
- The user will be able to ask for the rate or number of cases for a specific notifiable disease
- The user will be able to ask for help and receive instructions on how to use certain features of the program
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The program will display charts for the rate of cases and number of reported cases for diseases for the year of 2016 and also broken down by month and racial group
- If I could half check this box I would - I have the framework for this, I just need to get the user input to do this
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The user will be able to identify the diseases with the highest reported cases and rates, as well as the diseases that had none or very few reported cases in 2016
- This is a little problematic because to clean the data, I got rid of several diseases that have little to no cases. I may reconsider this moving forward, but can still report the highest reported cases and rates.
- If time permits, the program may provide the user with an external link on the disease or a short blurb about the disease (this may be a bit ambitious, but definitely useful)
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The program will display a table of the data used if prompted by the user
- I added this one previously, but think I don’t really need this - will reconsider that on.
Although this seems like I haven’t done anything, I have already done a lot. I just would like to do a lot more, so wish me luck!