Interview for Southamptons IT Innovation

I have just been offered an interview for Southampton’s IT Innovation! I was recently looking for some summer employment opportunities when I came across an advertisement for a temporary project assistant. I was amazed to see that there were a number of interesting projects I could be potentially involved in, including cloud computing for real-time online interactive applications as well as having the chance to develop tools for governments which would allow policy-makers to interact with the public on social networking websites in order to understand viewpoints and to stimulate discussions. All being well, I hope I will get the job as I’ve got a variety of skills which should stand in my favour.

It has been a while since I’ve last posted admittedly. This is because I have had to do the following coursework:
-Writing scripts in Linux
-Writing a crossword game in Java
-Designing a congestion charging system

I’ve particularly enjoyed the top two courseworks, but I have to admit I’m feeling exhausted at the moment, which is why this weekend I intend to just study and sleep really. Boring I know, but I do have exams soon (May 24th). Which reminds me: I’ve also been offered a conditional hardship scholarship from an external company. Should I achieve a 2:1 in my summer exams (which seeing as I got a First in Semester 1, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue), I will receive £1,000 in October. This would be a massive help as I’ve had to lend my parents money. From my student overdraft. I guess you could call my situation… unusual? Unfortunately, it’s a case of them earning too little to fully support themselves and too much for me be considered for financial support. </rant>

Do not fret though. There is financial support available for you at university if you do not say, have enough money to eat. I do luckily, because The Co-operative Bank are kind enough to give their student accounts an interest-free overdraft and because I work hard to earn money. Furthermore, my grandparents and godparents are kind enough to give me money from their hard-earned pension, which I am very grateful for. Also, I get a lot of ad-hoc work through the ECS Intranet, such as helping out on open days or even web-development work. You should keep your eyes peeled for any available work as it tends to beat bar or shop work definitely. Having worked in retail for a year, I can safely tell you that work through ECS is much better in terms of who you work with and how much you earn.

I actually helped out on an open day called “Science Day” where families are invited to ECS to get a taste of some of the latest technologies, whilst at the same time, get to help solve a murder mystery. I was a helper in the “Code Breaking” workshop which used augmented reality to help decode an encrypted email message sent from the victim. You could hold a camera up to a picture tile and then on the screen you could see a fully 3d object on that tile (for instance if you held up a picture of a flower you could see a 3D bee hovering around on screen!). Whatever object you could see with the augmented reality would be the word you typed in to decrypt the message. I’m pleased to say that according to a survey at the end of the day, our workshop was considered the best.

Time to learn some C programming now…