Extra classes, events and user groups at university

Now there is plenty of societies and groups that the university hold. Event workshops for CV’s, languages lessons and I think I’ve even seen gaming societies. I’ve attend very interesting guest lectures which aren’t apart of the curriculum but generally everyone attends. It gives you a better insight on how companies work and what to expect when going into industry. We’ve had quite a few of these guest lectures and I’m certain they have them for all aspects in computer science.

I’m attending another gamesJam/hackathon at Cambridge University next week (first weekend of July). Although this isn’t held by the University of Bedfordshire, a team of Bedfordshire students are going up and participating it. In computer science there are more technical user groups dotted all around. For example, there’s specific software user groups, operating system user groups and just general monthly/weekly tech events. Now it’s very difficult to compete with events which are held by in most cases experts or even creators of that software. It’s a place where people go to share ideas, contacts and get expert/peer advice.  

What’s amazing about being a Computer Science student at the moment is there is so much free knowledge and really plenty of events which relate to what you prefer. You may argue that you don’t need to be at university to attend these yes, but it’s amazing to have experts in the field very local/ most probably London.  From the ones I’ve attended everyone is very friendly and probably can answer any burning questions you have. Though I wouldn’t personally ask trivial questions which you can just research yourself and maybe not ask university assignment question answers. Rather techniques/tips to learn more on a specific area. Generally at these user groups there’s presentations that take places for some free extra knowledge!

Below are some links that you may find useful, studying at the University of Bedfordshire it’s a very quick journey to London. So there’s really no excuse to be attending these what mostly are free events. In some cases there’s a digital live steam you can watch if you can’t attend in person. 

Useful related links

List of societies running at Luton Campus

http://www.bedssu.co.uk/main-menu/societies/bedsocs-luton

Search for Microsoft related user groups

www.technicalcommunity.com

Search for Apple related user groups

http://appleusergroupresources.com/find-a-group/

UK Linux User groups 

https://lug.org.uk/

 

Autodesk events, workshops and seminars

http://uk.gep.autodesk-services.com/

Awaiting replies

I’ve been working on my portfolio in the last week. I found myself in a waiting room at hospital (long story, wasn’t for me though) when I thought it’d make a great render. Here’s the progress I’ve made so far.

Hospital draft render

Not finished yet, still need to add a few models/light features but making some good progress. As I spoke about before, there’s nothing I can do but wait. So to try and be somewhat productive I thought creating renders like this in my spare time would be a good thing to do. I’m going to quite a few events next month, would be nice if I get this polished to showcase and ask for critiques. I’ve also had some good topics for researching. If I don’t get accepted to an EngD/PhD course I applied for, I still might work on researching this in my own time. 

I don’t think I spoke about this before, but a subset of my final year project was using vectors for wrinkle maps was published at CGAT conference in Singapore, so I’m now a co-author! I’d love to research some more into other topics.

I’ve also got my final year provision grades! Being A, A, A-, A- but with the 1 unit transfer being A, A, A, A-! Which is a good result overall, so grade wise, I'm definitely on task for a 1:1. Just awaiting replies from university/institutions now.

The people and what to expect

I can’t obviously speak for every computer science course in every university. We’re all a bunch of nerds and geeks, not the cute hipster kind but the kind of nerds and geeks that’d love a discussion about the latest MMO patch updates and want to have a 3 hour discussion about optimizing a piece of code by a tenth of a millisecond. Computer science students are generally stereotyped like this in the media, The Big Bang Theory is originally based on Computer Science Students (programmers) and not physicists, and also it’s based on one of the writer’s real experience as a computer science student.

Now in secondary school, I was much on the nerdier side. I gamed on computers, loved tech and was academically smart.  Though, when I joined university it was like a whole different category and I was rather struck by it. One of the major shockers was day after Bayern vs Chelsea champions league final, as a Chelsea fan I came into class wanting to talk about the game. When I brought up the subject I was greeted to “You watch sports?” Not even narrowing it down to football but general “sports”. It was really strange to get used to and took a while that to know “Which Linux distro do you prefer?” would be a better conversational topic, Whereas before I’d know the inevitable answer would be “What’s linux?”. That being said we had some sports enthusiasts, non-gamers and genuine hipsters. Though everyone got on well with each other. I think I speak for every degree type, you are all there because you have a strong passion for a subject area. This meant you was with a lot of likeminded peers and everyone got on with each other. 

This blog post was inspired by Moss, IT Crowd

Applying for jobs, internships and programs

I’ve been keeping myself busy since finishing university, applying for scholarships, jobs and internships.  There are also some small competitions I enter like The UK APPCHALLENGE where I download and share apps on a weekly bases for a chance to win prizes. It’s also beneficial for me as I can see the standard of apps on the market place as well as observe other peoples artwork as almost a research purpose. I’ve also signed up for a few events in the next few months such as user groups and a hackathon in July.

Other than applications, the only other thing I can be doing at the moment is wait for replies! I’ve got some ones in mind that I’d love to join but really depends on competition.  I’ve also worked on some project in my own time already. For example the image I made below.

Didn’t take me too long, though I do want to improve on it in the near future.  

Thought I would lastly talk about applications, I had no idea about the terminology used for position applicants. For example an “advisor” reference. Why I await replies form companies and institutions I’ve also been in touch with students in my year and we do have some freelance/indie developments that could be a possibility.  

Finished University!

I’ve finally finished university, it’s been a long hard 3 years. Though I’ve enjoyed it, I’m glad it’s finished. The stage I’m at now is a very awkward one. I’m in a zone where I’m unsure of my near future, I have no idea if I will be doing further study because of waiting for results for my degree and also applications.

This is very similar to when I finished my A levels and a situation I don’t recall positively about. Generally as a teenager everything has certainty, so you know you’re generally going to progress into next year if you do sufficiently, whereas the gap from sixth form to degree is so much different. You can do sufficiently and even go beyond recommended requirements. Even still, there is such an uncertainty as your college or university may not even accept you because of alternative reasons. I’m again in this uncertain situation where I don’t know what I will be doing. I’m relieved from the units of university and appreciate the time now that I’ve got to relax, but I’m only delaying the inevitable search for the next step. Which can be another degree, an internship or even a job. 

Though it’s not uncommon to wait a few years to do a master degree and it’s in fact even more common to do a PhD once working in the field for a while. Keeping this into consideration and not over applying for jobs/positions is also key.