Currently browsing tag

deadlines, Page 2

Banana Bread for Helpdesk

I hope Helpdesk liked the banana bread Is it that time already? That was a rhetorical question, since my netbook informs me that it is the 10th of December, so bar ntp turning around and betraying me, I will assume that it is the correct date. At the cost of putting more pennies into the blogger's clichĂ© jar, this term has been incredibly quick and event packed. Continue reading →

Term is done!

Well that was quick. I know this term is only just over two months long - but it would seem that once you get started at University, you lose all sense of time. This applies to, one, being horribly late for lectures, two, coursework deadlines, three, to how long you've actually known the people around you (it seems like forever a lot of the time), and finally four, to how long you've been here. Continue reading →

Its Raining Again and Deadlines are Fast Approaching

So it's Friday morning, its raining outside and deadlines are fast approaching but it's not all doom and gloom! My 9AM tutorial finished early so I thought I would take the time to update the world with the recent events of my life. The University held an Engineering and Computer Science careers fair which I attended to look at the possibility of doing a summer placement next year. Many of the major players were present including Microsoft, Bloomberg, IBM, Siemens... the list goes on. Continue reading →

Empowering Communication Tools

As you can no doubt imagine, it's been a little hectic since the end of the Easter break. The steady flow of coursework deadlines, in-class tests and lab marking sessions has kept everybody on their toes. Whilst we were in the Stress-Agony-Panic-Relief cycle of multiple coursework deadlines, we are now in the Stress-Agony-Panic-Relief cycle of exams. This is worse than being a footie fan. Continue reading →

T1, C# and the EVAs

T1, C# and the EVAs There may be more acronyms than you can shake a stick at in that title, but it’ll all come clear
 It’s been a very busy three weeks since I arrived back from Easter, largely due to many courseworks and deadlines! This past week we had the infamous T1 lab, where we were challenged to produce a Tune Generator capable of playing a basic ‘melody’ (read ‘hideous square wave beeps’). Continue reading →

Deadlines are quite fantastic things…

Deadlines are really quite fantastic thing, for simple dates, they have an almost otherworldly power over the actions of humans. Truly in the world of times, deadlines are the kings, emperors, shahs and rajahs. A group of normally calm rational people could be going about their lives as they generally do, when suddenly a deadline raises its head and anarchy breaks loose. Suddenly these rational people start panicking, a lot. Normally diurnal people become nocturnal or even both. Continue reading →

Knowledge Transfer

Lots has been going on. I will tell you about it due course! However, my topic today is planning, organisation and motivation. The plan is mostly to share some resources that I have found. I have a problem with planning. I am really good at making plans, but have difficulty sticking to them. Maybe it's a result of overestimating what I can do, but then doing enough of it to satisfy whatever my targets were, by the *hard* deadline. Continue reading →

Time is Always Against Us

“Time is always against us”. By Morpheus, in one of my favourite movies - Matrix-Reloaded). The beauty of the quote is – you can easily replace “us” with “students” and still enjoy it ;) I would never be able to understand why we are given such a “short-time” to complete our coursework ( e.g. “just” two weeks to write one-page table, three weeks to prepare a 15-slides presentation and a month to read 20-pages standard specification). Continue reading →

Crunch time in the labs

It’s crunch time in the labs. Crunch - there it is again. Crunch. Mmmmm. This pizza is really good. It’s Monday and work is still continuing in the part IV labs, despite it being past 10 o’clock in the evening. There are some things you only ever learn doing a GDP, and it’s easy to catch out the project makers from the project fakers. For example, a faker won’t know that the main doors lock between the hours of 2300 and 0800. Continue reading →