Make your own opportunities

Joining university is a hard and a life changing decision. The course you want to study, the university and if further study is right for you. The likelihood is that going to university is the first major opportunity you’ll encounter. It’s a major stepping stone towards a career, but getting accepted to the university is the first hurdle.

The definition of luck is that it’s brought on by chance rather than one’s own action, but opportunities on the other hand can be brought on by things like skill, determination and contacts. Doing things like researching into a programming language for a programming course before going into the university interview or maybe playing around in some 3D software when joining a 3D Animation interview means a lot. The interviewee may have someone who’s done exactly that, meaning if you haven’t dabbled and researched you might find yourself looking elsewhere. Every small thing counts, printing Hello World maybe slight, but at least you've taken the time to look into it in your own time. The more effort you put in, the results will clearly show and will give you a much wider range of options in life’s next step. This is my last blog post, I've successfully finished university with a first and achieved everything I wanted to. I thought I’d round up with something that I wish I was told when I was younger. Make your own opportunities can be something as simple as joining a user group, every single contact you create is vital for when you finish university. It’s very long term, but every little bit extra you do will help in the long run. My final year of university I did an internship, Microsoft Student Partnership, freelanced, co-authored a paper and planned it all around my study time. These have all led to other opportunities and such as guest blog post sites on some major websites all because of the blog you’re reading now!  

Back at uni

I’m still very busy doing university work at the moment, but I’m at the very tail end of the work. I’ve done 90% of my final year project now, the artefact is complete and the overall conclusion and evaluation of the project is that it’s a success. I’m happy with what I’ve done but still there a bit more writing for the report needed. Some last assignments left and 1 exam. But I’m nearly finished with all of my university assignments now! Around 3-4 weeks until I’m officially finished the workload and exams. 

Here is a link to my final year project for those who are interested.

http://it-ca.net/blogsean/?page_id=1244

I’ve applied for a university scholarship too, although I’ve planned to apply to some internships for the summer. It’s a great time to update my portfolio and CV. I’ve been in touch with lecturers and trying to get references complete for the application process of the universities I’ve applied for. Although this time, I’ve only applied for 1 program. Mostly because at this level funding is really available for students who want to study a master degree/PhD. Otherwise I’ll be looking for jobs in the field or internships in the near future if my application process isn’t successful.

We have poster day next on the 8^th of May, I will get some pictures and blog about how that went. I personally have no idea what’s involved with such an event, so hopefully I can inform others what to expect. 

Preparing to come back

Happy Easter!

I’m coming back for the last term at university now, it’s the busiest I’ve ever been. The amount of work I’m doing now is punishing. I even make sure I’m doing something while sleeping, it’s a good time to be rendering. Some bizarre reason it’s around now you should be applying for universities and internships. As every student is probably at their busiest especially exams and end year assignments. So I’ve been applying and researching different routes to take while working on my projects. I don’t have a social life as I don’t have time for one at the moment, I feel guilty enough as it is just going shopping so I’ve not been out of friends for weeks now. I do Skype with them, for a few hours and generally then we only talk work and assignments. 

Very mixed emotions and very mixed thoughts at the moment, coming back for my last term is sad as university has been a life changing experience, yet part of me is happy to finally be almost complete.  Though, I thought this Easter break was a perfect opportunity to grow a beard. I’ve never done so before and I thought if I do get a job/internship in the summer I’ll never get another chance to try it. That’s an accomplishment, somewhat. 

Looking forward to seeing the progress of everyone else’s final year project too, I’m generally interested to see what everyone else has come up with.  Also it’s probably my peers that would sway my grade. I want to make sure my artefact is par with everyone else’s /better if possible.

Thought I would post my latest render here too.

Scene 1 of my animation, coming along well

So I’m just trying to finish my artefact for when I go back on Thursday then focus on my poster and then written work. All on task! Still a lot to do though.  We have to do a poster day in a few weeks and need to create an A1 poster of our artefact and information about it. Not sure if that’s course related or something all departments do.