The first semester is almost over

Time flies when you’re having fun. I guess that’s the only reasonable explanation for how quickly the past 10 weeks have flown by. It’s been more work than I could have imagined, but I’d do it all over again.

Just a quick overview of what the past 10 weeks has entailed, coursework wise, for us level 3 Computer Science students:

• An implementation of the Breadth First Search Algorithm and Dijkstra’s algorithm to find the shortest path between two words.
• Implementing parts of a compiler written in Haskell for a toy language named Tiny.
• Writing a program to check for duplicated in a mailing list using a re-sizable hash table in C.
• Writing an MP3 player with GUI in Java.
• Designing and implementing a GUI for a calendar in Java.

Keep in mind that we’ve never used Haskell or C before and the above is on top of attending lectures, going to labs, working on the team projects (which I’ll come to soon), and trying to squeeze a life in there somewhere too.

Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. I really enjoyed working on every single piece of coursework and although there’s still some left to do, I actually think I’ve managed to keep everything on track fairly well.

Third year seems to be a lot more about working as part of a team, and as such we have two team projects, both of which are significantly more complex than the rest of the coursework and span both semesters. They are ultimately the biggest and most difficult projects that I’ve ever worked on.

The first, which is more a Software Engineering excersise than computer science, is a “Centralized Reminder Management System”. Essentially scheduling and sending email reminders about upcoming deadlines.

In a worrying lesson about the real world, it’s taken the whole 10 weeks just to gather enough information to produce a set of requirements – thankfully we’re finally at a stage where can start producing some prototypes.

The second and much more interesting team project is one which we got to choose. My team chose to write an Instant Messenger client and server, nothing fancy, but something fun that we can actually make use of. I’m hoping to write something in the next few days about it’s development so far.

Outside of University I’ve started attending TechMeetup which is free to attend and you get free beer and pizza just for going and listening to some interesting talks. It’s a nobrainer if you’re interested in technology, beer or pizza.

1st Year at the University of Glasgow

I recently finished my first year at the University of Glasgow where I did Computer Science, Maths and Physics. I enjoyed it immensely and I cannot wait to go back in just over 3 weeks time (although I’ve still not decided exactly what courses I’ll be taking) when I’ll be doing Computer Science, Electric Engineering, C Programming under Linux and Exploring the Cosmos 2X.

This is an account of my thoughts about 1st year and will hopefully prove useful to anyone starting university soon.

Living away from home

University was exactly what I expected and hoped for. It gave me much more freedom, not just in terms of my eduction but my life too. Living away from home has been the biggest change and although I do miss my family, it’s been the most positive too. I’m not talking about the ability to do whatever I want or stay out as late as I want – my parents have always been very trusting and relaxed when it came to what I did. Being forced to be independent and do things for myself made me a more organised person. It increased my confidence and made me even more determined to succeed.

Student Halls

If you’re living in Halls, or even just a student flat, you’ll become accustom to all of these:

• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Dirt
• Noise

You’ll meet lots of people you can’t stand too. I’m not a big drinker. I’ve never done drugs. I can’t sleep with lots of noise and I like things to be clean and tidy. For anyone like me student halls sounds like a nightmare, but you know what? I loved every minute of it! You’ll meet lots of people. Some of them you’ll hate. Others you’ll get on with and, if you’re lucky, you might even find someone you love. Drink, drugs, noise and dirt are all part of student life. Alcohol will be all around you almost every day. You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to. I didn’t encounter anyone trying to sell me drugs, although there are obviously people who are on them. Noise and dirt, on the other hand, are something you’ll just have to get used to. Most people will be living away from home for the first time and some of them won’t remember to shower every day or, in some cases, every week. Keeping the kitchen & bathroom clean, washing clothes and changing the bed just proves too much for some people. Keep yourself clean and tidy and with a bit of luck the people around you will do the same. A little push in the right direction here and there – a comment about the pile of unwashed dishes at the sink or how messy the bathroom is can help but it doesn’t always work – they’ll quite possibly hate you because of it – but sometimes (and more often than not) they’ll apologise and clear up their mess.

“Mum, what’s for dinner?”

It’s a line that I got far too used to blurting out at home. For my first night in student halls, when my tummy started to rumble, I was left thinking: “What the hell do I do now?”. I could cook my own food easy enough – that wasn’t my problem. It was the daunting task of making myself 3 meals per day, every day and doing the dishes afterwards. On top of all that, I actually had to go out and buy the food and ingredients too! Somehow I survived though. Feeding yourself isn’t as difficult as you’d think and after a while you get used to it. Depending on how brave you are (and your budget) you might even start to investigate and try some more adventurous dishes than pasta or baked beans – the hardest part is usually just getting together the ingredients and equipment you need.

Lectures, labs, workshops

Lectures won’t teach you everything, in fact they won’t teach you very much at all. The real learning is done in preparing for, and during, labs and workshops (I’m talking as a science and maths student here, other subject areas, such as English may be different). I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go to lectures, they are still very important and you should attend them as often as possible. However, you wont fail the year because you missed one or two lectures. What they do provide you with is all the information you need to complete the labs, workshops and coursework. The notes you take in lectures are the basis of your learning. Don’t neglect lectures, you wont know what to do in labs, miss workshops and when exam time comes running along you’ll find yourself begging others for notes. Labs are what taught me the most. Preparation for labs is important. Before a Computer Science lab I generally complete most of, if not all of, the set work for that lab. Why? Because labs are where you have most access to help. Work out problems before you go, find your weaknesses. You can ask as many question as you need and get help, not only from your tutor, but from the other people in your lab too. Workshops are small tests done either at home or, for the majority, in class. They count for a percentage of your overall grade and are definatly work working for. Consider these as a chance to bump up your grade without too much work. They serve as great examples of the sort of thing you can expect in the actual exam.

It’s lots of work

Student life really is a lot of work. University is hard and if you want an easy ride then it’s not the place to be. You can do nothing all year, skip all your lectures, miss workshops and labs, get drunk every night of the week and sleep during the day – you’ll have the time of your life – but you’ll probably fail. It’s ok to have fun, go out drinking and miss a few lectures here and there. All work and no play would make life suck. It’s not, however, a good idea to treat every week like its freshers week.

Good luck

That’s all I have to say. I loved first year and if you’re about to start University I hope you do to. I hope to write up a review of 1st Year Computer Science at Glasgow soon and go into some detail about the course but for now I’m going to leave you with a picture of a really cute cat I found.