On Third Year…
Well that’s 3 years of Uni done with and I’ve earned an Ordinary BSc in Computer Science. That’s right. Gordon Govan, Computer Scientist. It seems to have all gone so quickly, have I really learnt enough to become a professional in my field? I’d hope so. I know that just about anything can be programmed and that it is just a matter of time and effort to develop a solution. It’s just coming up with quick, effective and adaptable solution that is the tricky part. Well I’ve still got another 2 years in Uni to go to get my MEng in Software Engineering and that includes an industrial placement as well. So I think that in two years time I’ll be much more ready and confident to step out into the real world and get a proper job, although ideally I’d just spend my life in the grandiose world of academia.
3rd year has been the best so far. The stuff that we have learnt you can see having very strong uses in industry, so I probably could go out and blag my way through a job, although I might need some C++ first. The Uni has been very good at teaching us the ideas behind things and then leaving us to fill in the gaps they leave. I’d say C++ is a good example of this. C++ seems to be one of the most common languages used in industry, but the Uni hasn’t taught us any. What they have taught us are good Object Oriented design principles, a wide selection of algorithms and data structures, and knowledge about how computers understand languages. All this means that if I wanted to learn C++ then I have all the background needed to pick it up in a short space of time. I feel that this is a much better approach then just teaching us the most common language and leaving us in the dark with the rest. As in most of computer science a high level, modular approach is better. They taught us that as well.
On the exams…
The exams went in okay. Compilers was good, AI was decent and Graphics was a gift. I had really enjoyed the graphics module and the exam was a perfect way just to wrap it up. A perfect end to the whole year in fact.
On the Group Project…
So the final Group Project event was yesterday, a meeting with Nick Taylor. We got our percentage for the group project, a respectable 70%, that’s first territory. Very pleased with the 70% after the demonstration had fallen apart. It was a short meeting, Nick just explaining how to end the group experience saying stuff like have a meeting and discuss each others weaknesses. So we went to this meeting afterwards so we went down to the Lectern (sadly soon to be closed for good) and like all our meetings it started out with good intentions and then just ended as random babbling, what a team. The group project really was a good teacher, one of the most illuminating parts of the course and it was good to be put in with such a good load of lads.
Looking to the holidays…
So I’ve got a week off before I start this summer project, so I’m taking time to go back west and visit my parents, I’m on a train to Glasgow as I write this (I love my eeePC). And then back through to Edinburgh to sort out all my notes from this term, a task I always dread and can spread it out to a whole afternoon. I’ll also need to get some background reading done before meeting Ruth.
Looking to 4th year…
4th year will be coming up in 13 weeks and I’m already putting a fair amount of thought towards it. Next year is also when Heriot-Watt changes from terms to semesters so many parts of the course are being moved about. The biggest change to effect me is that the MEng now do their dissertations in 4th year not 5th year. When we were talking to some of the existing 5th years they were saying that is was good to do your dissertation in 5th year for a number of reasons: you’ve got another years experience under your belt; you’ll have seen your friends on CS do it in their 4th year and learn from that; many of the ideas for the dissertations come from the industrial placement that has now moved to 5th year. I always thought that handing in your dissertation was like saying “Yes, that’s it, I’m finished at University”, but now we have another year. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes. Also there are two list to chose optional modules from, one for each semester but we only get one option from the first but it has so many good options, perhaps they’ll let us do 5 modules in one semester and 3 in the second…
