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.

Final Year Project VIVA

I had my final year project VIVA last week (oral exam), I thought it would benefit others if I shared my experience. I’m unsure if everyone has one, seemed mainly computer science based course have VIVA’s. A basic overview of what the VIVA is that your project supervisor and you and in a room alone with an external examiner. Then quizzed about your project, it’s also now that you find out how good your idea was. From speaking to others, you get rigorously grilled about your subject choice and technicality of it.

My viva went very well, I think I was less than 5 minutes in the meeting. I answered all questions sufficiently and without blabbering. I think this is mostly because of my topic, my final year project could have been a failure. I picked something that I had knowledge of, but never tried. I basically had to invent my own methodology and without even knowing if it was possible. It definitely had its risk, but my supervisor/examiner seemed very pleased with my work.

I’m unsure legally if I can disclose exact questions, but I can give a rough overview from what I heard from others and what to expect. 

-        -  Understand your project inside out

-        -  Reasoning

o   Know why you worded your so

o   The final methodology and why

o   Does your project benefit anyone?

o   Does this project even fit in this degree area?

o   If you didn’t complete it, then why.

o   What could you do better

o   If you used any plugins, can’t you do it without?

Also be prepared to be quizzed on your own project, a viva is also there to make sure that you did your own project. I’d recommend re-reading your whole final paper again just to refresh the project.

I found a very handy link which has more information about project vivas here http://www.stars.rdg.ac.uk/viva.html

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.