Posted: 18th June 2008
My degree classification was released on Friday 13th June (read into that as you will!), and I received a 2:2.
I was expecting to get this result as I needed to get a high mark this year to get a 2:1 (and a First would probably have been impossible) due to my poor second year at University. I had a really tough time during my second year and really disliked my course, leaving me with a very low average for the year. As the second year consists of 35% of my final classification (and my final year being worth 55% and my year in industry being worth 10%), I had caused myself a lot of problems to graduate with a higher classification.
The reason the title states that the exam results are sort of in is because my actual results (individual marks for modules) haven’t been released yet. They probably will be released on Friday, and then I’ll know how I did overall and how close I was to a 2:1.
Posted: 29th May 2008
I had my last exam on Friday just gone (23rd May) and am now a free man!
My exams were a bit of a mixed bag. The first one was ok apart from one question I messed up, the second one was really difficult. The third one went ok, but could have been better and the final one was difficult and I didn’t have enough time for it.
I also had to give a presentation (went really well) and do a Viva (was horrific!) during the exam period. So I’m glad it is all over now.
My housemates and myself are starting to leave University now. One of them left on Tuesday and another left today. I’m leaving tomorrow and the last two guys are leaving at some point next week. It’s strange because I’ve known these guys (and girl) for 4 years whilst at University, and one of the guys I have lived with for three years (and another I had lived with for 2 years).
So whats next for me? Well, I’m moving back home and beginning the job hunt. I’m going to try and find any job (if it is in IT then all the better) for the next year or so and apply for graduate schemes in the mean time. No more student loan for me! I’ll have to start paying that back soon I guess…
Posted: 10th May 2008
The weather has been absolutely stunning recently. It’s not often that the UK gets good weather, but that makes it extra special when we do!
Unfortunately, this recent bout of good weather has come smack in the middle of exam season. I’ve tried sitting outside revising in the sun, but there are too many distractions such as random noises (mostly 1st years having fun as their exams don’t start for a little while yet) and my notes being blown around (it’s not too windy, but there is a nice breeze).
Speaking of exams, so far I have had one exam. It was for Computer Security and Cryptography. The exam was probably the best exam we could have had (in terms of what topics came up), but I stupidly got myself confused between a transposition cipher and the Vigenere Cipher (Substitution) - meaning that I’ve lost about 10 marks out of 60. I was so annoyed with myself as I knew the answer completely, but just wrote about the wrong one!
I have a 15 minute presentation to give to some examiners on Monday that I have yet to prepare for. It should be alright though, and I’m planning on writing it tomorrow so I have most of tomorrow to prepare for it. After that I have an exam on Wednesday (Software Failure and Risk) that I am going to fail - it is a horrible module. I have two more exams on the 22nd and 23rd ("Human Computer Interaction" and "Concurrency Design and Practice" respectively) and then I am done… sort of. I have a Viva Voce as well, where I am interviewed about my final year project.
Now that my housemate Chole is back, I’ve been running again. I did a 5 1/2 mile run on Thursday and a 6 1/2 run this evening, so I’m back on track!
I also went and saw Be Kind Rewind on Friday. I thought it was quite good, and found lots of the sweded films to be very funny. Some of my friends were less than impressed, but some of that was due to the fact that they had not seen the original films that Jack Black and Mos Def recreated.
Posted: 28th March 2008
So yesterday was the due date for my final year project (the BlueJ Java IDE GUI Builder extension). It was a stressful day to say the least with us handing it in right as the office was closing. I wasn’t particularly happy with that, as I was hoping to get it in a few hours before. But oh well, it’s in and now I just have to write an Individual Report and have an interview with some examiners regarding it.
On another note, I just want to point out how incredibly annoying it is that Grand Theft Auto IV comes out on April 29th, just a few days before my final exams start!
I guess I’ll have have to wait until May 23rd to buy it (that is the day after my last exam). Very annoying.
Posted: 10th March 2008
I couldn’t quite get the title all B’s, but I tried!
Things have been really hectic recently and it’s all come out of nowhere - honest! Well, that’s not strictly true, but I will elaborate:
In just over two weeks time I have to hand in my final year project. This includes the finished program, documentation, technical report and then 4 days later an individual report too (it is a group project). The project that I have been working on this year with three other guys is a Graphical User Interface Builder extension for the BlueJ Java IDE. Essentially, people new to Java that are learning using the BlueJ IDE might want to build a GUI for their projects and so we have been developing an extension that allows users to create simple GUIs for their projects.
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Posted: 1st March 2008
I’m back in London this weekend visiting my family and found myself with a fair bit of free time this afternoon. Whilst generally browsing the internet on the family computer (formally my main computer), I came to the conclusion that it was running quite badly.
Now, because I am studying a technical course at University (Computer Science), the department that I am taught by have a MSDN Academic Alliance account. This means that I am able to download various pieces of Microsoft Software for free, from Microsoft (read: totally legitimate).
Over the last few weeks I’ve been badgered by one of my housemates and some friends from Uni to install Ubuntu on my PC at Uni. I’ve been holding off because I am planning on dual-booting with XP, but just haven’t found the time to get myself properly organised and backed up etc. I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to try out re-installing Windows XP on an old machine that isn’t too important (OK, so my father needs to be able to access his work emails, as he is currently on leave for 6 months or so [he still needs to be in contact etc.]).
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Posted: 25th February 2008
Today has been a long day…
One of my modules at University requires me to go into a school once a week (or in my case, twice every other week) and help out in Computing related lessons. The school I go into is a 40 minute walk from my house on campus and i need to be there by 8:40am (that is when their first lesson starts), so I usually get up at about 6:30am to make sure I’ve had a proper breakfast and ironed a shirt etc.
Well, last night I didn’t really sleep too well. I’m fairly sure I kept on waking up because I thought it was CTU agent being chased or something (I’ll blog about my newfound addiction to 24 soon), but I basically had a rather interrupted sleep. Not ideal when I had to spend 3 hours and 40 minutes in school (and the 40 minutes each way traveling)!
School went well though, I was discussing health issues with computers as well as helping out with 2D arrays in Java. The two classes I help with are both great and I don’t get any trouble from the students.
After I trekked back up to campus I went straight to the computer labs to work on my final year project (will blog about that soon too!) before meeting with my project supervisor at 3pm. After that meeting I was meeting with one of the guys in my group who couldn’t make the meeting with the supervisor. We talked about the project for about 2 hours discussing what he needs to do and what we had already done, and generally things went well and hopefully he’ll be able to get something concrete done soon.
I’m back at home now absolutely shattered and have to prepare a presentation for tomorrow morning. I need to present a business idea that I wrote a business plan for last term. It is a formal affair (suit and tie), but only lasts about 8 minutes which is good. We were only told what the presentation consisted of, and when we were scheduled to give our presentations, last Thursday though.
I’m back in school on Wednesday and although I thought it was project week this week, apparently it’s not! So that means lectures and seminars still… woo! Ugh.
Posted: 21st February 2008
Due to recent circumstances, I am now traveling a lot between Canterbury (where I go to University) and south east London (where my parents live, and where I live when on holiday from University). I’m going back most weekends, Friday through till Sunday evening (or sometimes Monday morning) and this takes out a large chunk of my week.
I tend to have a reasonable amount of work to do over the weekends and this presented a problem for me as the computer we have back in London isn’t particularly good (slow) and I find it difficult to use (cluttered and full of software that probably doesn’t need to be on there!), so getting work done is usually rather unlikely. So I decided it was about time for me to get a laptop. Why a laptop and not just a new computer for home? Well, although there is a price premium when buying a laptop (I wouldn’t have needed to buy a new screen for the home PC) the convenience of being able to use a laptop on the train back home or up on campus made me think it was worth paying that bit extra. This led me on a search for a good laptop…
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Posted: 19th November 2006
Well, i’ve completed Hellrunner (took me and two of my friends 2 hours and 10 minutes to do). Next on the horizon is a half-marathon at the beginning of February and then the Terminator 10 towards the end of February.
I don’t know what it is with running at the moment, but i’ve had so much motivation (much love goes to my friends from work who i run with and take part in these races with) recently and it feels really good.
Other than running, work has been going really well, interesting projects (did a project in ASP last week which was good because i’d never done ASP before and had to have it done in less than 3 days - which i did!) and the social scene is still fantastic.
Off to Barcelona next weekend to visit a friend of mine from University. Going with another friend from uni, so i’m sure much fun will be had!
Christmas is coming up, so i guess i should start thinking about what to get people, and start making cards! Looks like this year is going to be a lot of fun!
Well, random blog i know, and i’m sure no-one reads this (well, by the lack of comments i get, i can only assume that fact!), but i’ll continue to post things now and then anyway.
Who knows, i may even get around to redesigning this place some time soon!
Posted: 12th July 2006
Well, i’m a week and a half into my industrial placement with Merck Sharp and Dohme and can honestly say i’m having a fantastic time. There are around 14 placements (there are a couple of summer placements I don’t really know - i’m here for a year as are most of the placements) spread across various different departments. First day was as awkward as you’d expect, meeting 10 new people (I live with 3 other placement students, so kind of knew them already) in the space of about 30 mins before going off to our individual departments is something i’ve been used to from school (when new 6th form students came into the school) and at uni (freshers week).
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