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project work

Finding a home in the Level 2 Project lab

One of the major differences or changes I experienced in my third year of studies in ECS was the lack of mandatory lab sessions like we had in the first and second years.  Unlike years 1 and 2, no third year module (apart from one) involved compulsory lab sessions.  This in effect meant I only had to come into the labs mainly for my third year project work especially as mine involved  both hardware and software components. Continue reading →

Third Year.

I left second year thinking that the levels of stress could not possibly get worse. After all, I had fewer lectures, the freedom to dictate the course of my work, and of course, no group projects. I think I may have forgotten that I am Yusra Hussain; stress always finds me. I think it aids my productivity, though! Year 3 brought with it many, many things. Continue reading →

Project Submitted!

Project submitted! The project report has been handed in: the piece of technical literature which will have the greatest weight on my grade for this academic year. This was, in fact, done nine days ago, but it has taken me this time to recover and find the time to express the event in words. With the stress of the individual project having been lifted, there exists a sort of limbo which feels something akin to the day after the lord mayor's show. Continue reading →

Spring Term Is Coming To An End

Spring term is coming to an end which almost marks the end of my first year of university life here. A lot has been going on in the last six months from the very first day I stepped onto this land. I still remember the day when I walked out of Heathrow Airport, the excitement building up in me was so intense that almost instantly, the fatigue due to the 13 hours-long flight journey was completely gone. Culture shock? Not really. I guess it's just a different living style. Continue reading →

On My Final Project

I think the blog entries are going to get a little sparse in the forthcoming weeks as it is the stretch of a project where there is an effort to maximise the time available. Fortunately, I appear to have improved during my time at University on matters relating to keeping people informed on my progress. Over the last week I had two meetings with "disinterested" parties in my project. The first meeting was with my second examiner. Continue reading →

The Ash-powered clock is ticking

The Ash-powered clock is ticking [1]. This device of torture is the countdown clock which reaches zero at the hand-in deadline of the individual project. Never has such an small block of Javascript, developed by so few, terrorised so many. ECS Helpdesk were good/evil enough (delete as appropriate) to put a version of the website clock on the main screen in ECS Undergraduate labs for a few days. As Alex Ferguson once put it: now is squeaky bottom time [2]. Continue reading →

Began Making Real Progress with the Prototype

Ethically sound In the immortal words of Professor Farnsworth: "Good news, everybody...": yep, Ethics approval got given for my questionnaire and it is now out in the wild. So the natural progression has been to get anyone and everyone to fill it in. If I haven't got around to ask you yet, it can be found here. Some people in the computer world appreciate getting Slashdotted. In ECS, one can get Joyced. What is Joyced? The term (coined by Samuel Weston esq. Continue reading →

And Breathe

And breathe. This semester has been an absolute test of sanity and friendships. I admit it has also been more eventful than it really needed to be, which didn't help much to be honest, however, it's a good skill to be able to focus on your work regardless if you can do it. First the sanity; the workload this year has been quite high. We had loads of coursework (eleven I think) and then you're also expected to do extra reading around the subject and have time to do paid-work. Continue reading →

A story of coffee, pasties and the plan for the future*

A story of coffee, pasties and the plan for the future* It's done! The 'it' being my project progress report. Between 8:30am on Sunday and 1:30pm on Wednesday I clocked up 36 hours of work solely on the assembly of the project report. This involved being rooted to the spot in the undergraduate labs and subject to regular caffeine fixes at predetermined points of the day. For someone who likes to run long distances, there is decidedly not natural and had left me feeling unhealthy. Continue reading →

New Challenges and Problems to Solve

New Challenges The world is full of great challenges. They may be problems to solve, people to meet, or experiences to explore. Where one person sees a problem, another will see a challenge, an opportunity for growth and a step on their personal road to success. Getting a degree is one such challenge. I've been involved with the University of Southampton for nearly 5 years now, and I am constantly finding new challenges in my work. Continue reading →