Credit Crunch

Overhyped by the media or not, there can now be no denying that we are in the midst of a financial crisis, or ‘credit crunch’ to use the term in vogue. I witnessed this for myself yesterday. You may remember me posting in my second blog way back in October (or if you don’t, scroll down a bit!) that the University’s Science and Engineering Careers Fair was awash with placement opportunities, even for us as first years. Well, at the ECS Careers Fair yesterday, nothing could be further than the truth.

Even though the technology sector is set to cope better than most industries, it is certain that all the companies presenting had been hit very hard by the recession and were only really looking for “exceptional” graduates, let alone those of us just trying to gain a bit more experience. Of course none of this was the fault of ECS; as always it was a very well thought out event, it’s just a sorry reflection of the state of our society at the moment. But on the bright side, I got lots more free stuff! In fact, never mind the credit crunch, I’m surprised the companies stay in business with the amount of freebies thrown our way.

But anyways, I’ve finally written an introduction to a blog that doesn’t involve the end of something! I’ve done that three times in a row now, and I thought it was getting highly predictable. So the careers fair was a handy intervention as I really wanted to talk about Semester 2 having (nearly) finished the first couple of weeks, but I didn’t feel like I should start with it! The pace of the Maths course is starting to pick up – there are now plenty of things I haven’t already done, which is great. We have an excellent lecturer for the Analogue Electronics course and it is very interesting. Likewise for the new Digital Electronics and C# modules. We also have lectures in Engineering Physics, Communications and Control, although we’ve yet to have enough sessions with them to fairly judge! I’m sure they’ll all be very useful too. On the extra-curricular side, I’m looking forward to performing more with SUJO and to our trans-European tour at the end of the year! I’ve also just started taking part with the Student Robotics society and am hoping to get involved with PhotoSoc. The start of the new Semester is a great time to start new things!