#comp sci student

[kateintech]

I took a break from all of my working and studying last night to go to a friends BBQ...I walked in with blonde hair and walked out with it different shades of purple!

[kateintech]

Self pressure

The holidays are definitely over! I'm back in lectures and have my first exam on the 26th January on Haskell. 

Last week was great, going back to uni and getting into the swing of things again. We're doing a law module this term and as part of the assessment we have to go to a magistrates court and observe a case, then write a two page court report. We have to report on everything we see including how any technology used helps or hinders proceedings. This should be interesting! 

As well as this we're learning about computer networks. At the minute I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the exams we have coming up. It all seems very complicated looking at packets on Wireshark and figuring out MAC addresses?! 

I'm not disheartened by all the new things we're learning, if anything I'm excited to learn it all and know that that one day I'll be a professional developer working in the industry. I mean, come September i'll know so much more than I knew last September! It's just sometimes I put so much pressure on myself it gets me down. I stayed up late last night dreaming about what sort of placement I want to do followed by what job I want to do once I graduate. I get so excited and then so overwhelmed. So today is one of those days and I just wanted to share this with you. 

Instead of turning to chocolate I'm going to turn to Graham Hutton's "Programming in Haskell". 

[kateintech]

Test Time

Skipping ahead to week 5 of uni, we had our first Phase Tests. For those of you that don't know what these are, they are short ten minute online tests used to keep check of our progress in each subject. We had four tests, Programming in C, Computational Modelling which is split into two tests - Analysis and Testing and also Logic and then finally Elements of Computing (Operating Systems). 

It had been around 12 years since I've had to take a test so I went in there probably the most nervous I've ever been. I'd gotten myself so worked up I felt sick and had given myself a headache. This was probably to do with the amount of pressure I was putting on myself!

In the end I did ok...

Programming in C - 7/10 Analysis and Testing - 7/12 Logic - 19/20 Operating Systems - 12/13

Now I was proud of my results considering this was still all new and I was being tested after 4 weeks and a day. So there I am really pleased with myself and one guy I'd never spoken to in the 4 weeks comes up to me after a lecture whilst I'm sat with my friends and asks me how I did. I told him each individual score and he said, "wait a second let me add yours up", which he then did infront of me and then he proceeded to add his scores up beating me by a couple of points. This is how the rest of the conversation went...

Guy: Oh I beat you and I didn't revise! Me: (Choosing to let that comment slide) You did well if you didn't revise. I revised really hard.

Guy: You revised and got that?! 

Me: Yeah I did. There's nothing wrong with what I got! 

Guy: (Walks off laughing) 

How am I meant to take that? I couldn't believe it, show some humility!! But it was the same with almost off of the boys - which is most of my course, they were all walking around letting everyone know exactly how well they'd done. A couple of my friends did really well (one guy and one girl) and they were so humble and didn't feel the need to show off. I really hope they go far in life! 

But after that first test I couldn't believe how many guys I'd never spoken to before came up to me to tell me how good they'd done. 

So the only thing I could do after that was study even harder and now after 10 weeks and two Phase Tests later my scores have improved and overall it's looking like 123/144. 

I'm going to work even harder and can only say thank you to the douches like him for pushing me to be better.