My First Blog Post – Lets Start With an Introduction

Hello! As this is my first blog post, I guess the obvious place for me to start is by introducing myself. I am here in Southampton to study MEng Electronic Engineering and love every minute of it! I decided to come to Southampton not only because of its great rankings in the league tables but also because of the warmth and sense of fun that was conveyed at the open days and interview. I was a little worried that perhaps they had put on a bit of a show for the open days but ECS has not disappointed one bit!

The school put on a great programme called JumpStart during Freshers’ Week. This was a great way to get to know your tutor group and other people on your course as you all felt very foolish doing some frankly rather odd things around the city. I am now two weeks into my course and it is becoming increasingly clear just how important your tutor group is. They are the people who you can go to in order to get help. Everyone arrives with different levels of experience and different interests and hobbies. For example, don’t worry if you are struggling with the maths, someone in your tutor group will probably be able to help you and later, when you move on to C Programming you might be able to help them. One of the things I love about being here is that the material isn’t spoon fed to you. If you want to just do the bare minimum you need to do to get your degree then nobody will mind. If you are like me and actually find the field of electronic engineering fascinating, the school offers a range of lectures outside of your timetabled ones where guest speakers come in and talk to you about various topics. I have already attended two including one by the chief scientist of Verizon Communications and another outlining the Energy situation in the UK and suggesting how we can move forward.

Another great advantage of being part of ECS is that you get your text books provided for you. Looking up at my top shelf I count eleven and I am still waiting for another two. If I had had to pay for them all myself the costs would have been astronomical! Instead I spent the money on a small netbook to help me with my note taking in lectures!
As for the course itself, we are still pulling everybody up to the same level. For example, I am finding the Electronics side of things very easy because I did it at A Level, but I have to work hard to keep up in maths because I didn’t do further maths. My favourite module so far has to be Solid State Electronics. This is because the material is almost entirely new to me and is really interesting. (That’s not to say the others aren’t interesting, I just find this one the most interesting at the moment.) The lecturers are great in all the modules; each with their own little quirks that mean I can’t help but enjoy lectures and remember what they are teaching.

Anyway, I have some coursework to be getting on with!