Placement

This year I have the option to do up to one year in work placement. My award is a little strange in that the placement for me is optional. If I can't find one I just transfer to the award that doesn't require a placement and that's that.

I initially jumped onto the placement bandwagon with enthusiasm. I'm getting such good feedback from the University that I figured I'd surely be able to find a good placement pretty early on. As time goes on however, I'm not finding this is at all the case.

The biggest problem it seems is me, or more specifically, my living situation. I can't just up sticks and move like most students can, I've got a house and childcare issues. All the best placements for software development seem to be in Reading, Leamington Spa or London, that's simply to far for me to commute. So I'm limited to the west midlands where the pickings, software wise, are pretty slim.

I polished up my CV and applied to everyone who was looking for something even remotely software orientated. Out of something like 20 applications I've only had a couple of interviews. Neither of them came to anything. One gave me no feedback at all and the other one told me to come back in a couple of months and then filled the position that I was supposed to come back for.

It's like being back on the job hunt, only weirder. Where as before, if I wasn't completely ignored by employers I was at least treated like a professional. It was assumed that I had the skills appropriate for the job and was occasionally asked to elaborate.
Going for a placement is all together more soul destroying. You still stand just as much chance at being ignored but now the interviewers treat you like, well... a student. I've been given full blown exams and hour long sessions of critically assessed programming. It's stressful to say the least.

In their defence I've now had the pleasure of working with a variety of students for a couple of years and have, in that time, managed two group projects. If I was in there shoes I'd be testing candidates as well.

This week I had an interview for a role that I would be perfect for. All of my interests and experience are right on the money and the company is next door to the university. When interview day came I was quite nervous about what potential challenges awaited me, so much that I'd spend the days before pouring over all my past work trying to think of everything that I might be asked about or tested on. I even brushed up in my objective c, c# and c++ just to be safe.

As interviews go however this was about the most normal interview I've had since starting my degree. I was a relaxed and respectful and professional conversation. It was all very much, "This is what we do, this is what we want." "This is what I've done, this what why I'm the man for the job." a very familiar format and welcome relief from what I've come to expect from placement hunting.

I used to have a real knack for interviews. My trouble has always been getting my CV through to interview stage, without a degree it's nearly impossible. There was a time when I could proudly state that if I got through to interview, then the job was mine. I seem to have lost that skill somewhere along the way. Maybe it's just that I'm up against a higher calibre of competition now, I dunno.

I'm waiting to hear back from that interview them and I'm hopeful. Aside my compulsively pointing out every little bug or imperfection in my apps as I talked about them, I didn't say anything that would have outright blown the interview. I was relaxed, professional and well prepared the whole way through. It's nice to come away from the interview feeling good about it for a change. I've got another interview on the horizon as well so I'm not readying my award transfer papers just yet.

Assignment Technique

I have a habit of diving head first into assignments trying to amaze and astound people by implementing very advanced techniques or the like into my work.

I've had several lengthy discussions with many of my lecturers about my attitude toward my work. Nearly all of them keep telling me to, for lack of a better phrase, take it a little less seriously. Generally they tell me to go for easy marks first, then go for the harder stuff. I generally dislike this approach to education as I don't feel it really encourages students to push themselves. It's hard to really push yourself when you already know that you're going to pass. Also, bare pass marks are usually at a very low standard. I want top marks, all the time in everything.

This semester I'm amalgamating all the advice that I've had from my lectures and combining them with my usual approach. So far its serving me well.

For example, I have an assignment for concurrency. I've attempted this assignment several times and keep coming up against the exact same problem. Basically I have a resource shortage and I just can't solve it. I'm reluctant to ask my tutor for any more assistance that he's already provided me. It's a huge class and I'm so far ahead of everyone else that it's not really fair to be taking so much time from those who might be struggling.

I pushed onward and found come up with an implementation that solves the problem except for a very minor, but obvious, cosmetic problem. I've spent weeks on this assignment and it's really starting to get to me.

So I'm taking a break, sort of. The assignment is done bar this single problem and I've got a lot of other, more difficult work to attend to. So rather than spending the next 4 weeks pulling out my hair trying to figure out I've applied my new approach, all be it, in reverse. I took a look at the marking scheme and have implemented each of the, extra marks, items. These are things like pretty graphics and other things that are might be slightly beyond the scope of the module. So counting up the marks I'm easily into the high 90% despite this little problem. The extra marks gained will more than make up for the marks lost. Now, if I don't manage to get back to this assignment before the hand I'll still be looking at an A. My assignment may not be perfect but I'm still getting top marks.

I realize that this might be considered contrary to things I've said in the past. But those were intended to be general student advice. This is specific to me.

Scraping a Pass

I received the results from one of my modules from last semester. I've already had my results from two other modules and I was looking at a possible first if everything else went well, realistically though I was probably looking to get a solid 2:1.

Then I got this grade back. Wow, it really ruined my day, I did a little better than expected on the assignment but bombed the test. Thankfully my assignment marks put me over the pass mark but just barely. I'm not happy at all with this grade.

Part of me wants to rage at the system. This was a level 6 module and a hard one at that. I'm currently taking the level 5 module that's supposed to build up to this one. This is the result of years of scheduling and re-scheduling the modules until this was the only fit, it's a major fault of the school, and one that they're rectifying next year, but I can't really blame the school. These things happen with teachers and awards coming and going over the years. However having taken these modules out of order I feel has undermined me, and everyone else on the award. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the basics of the subject while being taught about the much, much more advanced applications and techniques. It was very frustrating.

All in all though I had plenty of help. I plagued my tutors during this module and I was just happy to have a working application to submit for my assignment in the end.

My study technique failed me tremendously for the exam. The module covered a lot of very complicated subjects over a a fairly short period of time. I didn't understand a lot of the basic stuff so I focused on those for my general study and then looked to the past exam papers for my more focused revision. I revised for two days solid and was fairly confident when I sat down to take the exam. However, the tutors went for a complete re-write on the exam this year and virtually nothing that had been on any of the past papers appeared on this exam. So I basically sat the exam almost completely unprepared.

Worst case scenario this bumps my degree down to a third class, which is horrifying. If I get solid firsts this semester I can maybe scrape a 2:1 which would be fine. So far I'm doing extremely well in two modules and not as well in the other two so I'll just have to wait and see how it goes but I'm optimistic but this is going to be hanging over my head for for the next two months, especially come exam time.

Being The Boss.

21-01-13

I've got a module this semester where in, we're to work as small games companies. It's straight forward enough, the class of 30ish students has been split into two teams of ten and we're using the Cry engine and Scrum to create one prototype game each. The game has to be a FPS zombie killing game, multiplayer optional.

Now, in that we're supposed be working as a games company we were all to be given roles based on skills and personal preference. These roles were to be given out by the company producer, an elected executive type role, basically the producer is the guy in charge. This role has real power in the module, they manage the team, make all the final decisions about the game and if necessary, discipline team members. The producer can actually have members of his team kicked off the module if it's deemed necessary.

I'd put my name in for producer. Thinking that, if I got it, it would be good experience relating to my plans after graduation, I also thought it would be nice if I was actually put in charge of a project by my peers instead of just assuming the role.

The campaign was short, we stood in front of the class and presented our fitness for candidacy for 2 minutes each. I'm not well known at the university and I don't even think I'm well liked, I have a habit of winding up total strangers and openly mocking design students, many of whom were on that module. I screwed up my 'speech' delivery pretty royally and made myself look a real idiot. But when the votes came in I (having snuck a peek at the count) was on top... oh... goodie.

So now, here I am leading one of three teams in making a game from the ground up. We're using a commercial grade engine so it's not nearly as much work as it sounds, but there's still an awful lot to do, especially for me. I've got 10 other students relying on me to get a good grade in this module, I've got to manage their time, their tasks and the quality of their work. I've got to organise and lead regular meetings, orchestrate documentation and be held accountable for any and all the problems. I've also got to track it all and report on it. I have a lead artist, designer, tools developer, scripter and 6 team members assigned to various areas. In all I have 2 game designers and 8+ programmers, I'm still waiting for a couple a stragglers to be assigned to my team. All looking to me for decisive guidance and support...

What have I gotten myself in to?

On Studying

I've been asked a number of times recently on studying. How do you go about studying for an exam, or studying in general? So I figured I'd write a post on it.

1. Time-Keeping

Pace yourself. Students are in the habit of cramming before exams, which is fine as long as it works for you. But even when cramming it's important to keep a steady pace. I'm not a crammer, the thought of leaving studying till the last minute freaks me out and as I have a hard enough time absorbing information it just seems like academic suicide. So I use all the time I have available to review in short bits with a break in between.

Let's say I had 2 weeks to review for a math exam. Each day would schedule 2 lots of 1 hour for a subject, so day 1 I would look at one subject and only one, such as Vectors. After those 2 hours I'd stop regardless of where I was at. Day 2 I would pick another subject and do the same. Each day I pick a new subject and don't repeat the same subject two days in a row. If I wanted to go over vectors again that's fine, just make sure to put something between it, otherwise you end up spending half of the time on one subject.

2. Choose your subjects wisely.
As far as choosing the subject order I start with the things that I'm best at. Ideally you want to cover the course subject matter in its entirety but there's not always time. Because I'm best that them they'll take the least amount of time to review and most importantly, I find the harder things are easier to understand when you have a firm grasp of the easy stuff. And if you get to exam time and you've spent all your time trying to understand only a couple of the very difficult subjects, how prepared are you? Especially if those subjects don't appear on the exam. This can be applied over any time scale, but I suggest that you stick to hour long blocks of study time. I.e. shorten the breaks, not the study.

3. Crowd-sourcing.
I'm against crowd sourcing generally for two reasons; 1. A crowd sourced opinion is no opinion at all. 2. there's a lot of crap out there and some of it is... less correct than it should be. That being said, hit the internet and look at how other people interpret and express the subject. Especially in regards to math and programming I found it really helps.

4. Conversation.
Find someone who understands the subject at about the same level, or another people who is reviewing for the same exam maybe. And converse with them about it. I don't read well, so library books and other literature is largely wasted on me, so I converse, with tutors, with students and some time with my 6 year old son. Any one who will listen and respond to me so that I can assimilate the information spoken out loud.
After explaining this technique to a fellow-student he responded with "So that's why you're always quizzing all us before exams?"

So that's it. That's my studying technique and it's served me pretty well

Group Work

This post may come across as whiny, it's really not meant to be so, I'm just trying to document the entire experience so that the lessons learned are more clear.

This semester I had the pleasure of a group assignment. This particular module awarded a great deal of freedom in the assignment and looked to be very very fun. I was excited about this class.

I was given some advice earlier in the year on group work, that was a few items that are roughly as follows.
1. Find a group of good people, not your friends.
2. You're going to get roped into being the team leader sooner or later.
3. Don't forget that others struggle with this stuff more than you do.

The assignment can be summed up as this; as a group make a game engine and use it to make four different genres of game to demonstrate the engine. Awesome.

Firstly there was the division of work.
We talked and talked about what kind of games we wanted to make in the hopes that it would give us an idea of what types of engine components we needed. 2 weeks of these talks got us no where, so it came down to me to make the decision for everyone.
So I decreed: "I want AI, you do physics, you do graphics."
"But I don't want graphics."
"Fine I'll do graphics. You do physics"
A little time passed and I actually wrote a working tile engine for the game before.
"I can't do physics I want something else, but graphics is too easy."
and so on.

The end resulted in me on physics, him on AI and him on Graphics. But surely the more astute of you have noticed that me, him and him only amount to three, and I mentioned four before.
That's because another 'friend' found himself without a group. So me being the charitable person I am had suggested that we wouldn't have a problem with him joining our group. He was a sharp guy, if a little unreliable, very unreliable... What the hell was I thinking? I regretted this decision the moment I spoke up. Having this guy in our group could only mean disaster...

So then, what should the new guy do? Sound? No too easy. Physics? No too easy (thanks). I want to do a lighting engine. Great, it wasn't a crucial component to the engine and if he finished, it would be a cool effect.

The weeks went on and our graphics were finished in an instant, well done you. We had a tile engine and a screen manger and some basic artwork. Meanwhile I'd created some of the framework of my physics and got a particle system working pretty quickly.
More weeks rolled by and I worked and tuned my physics and started working on collisions and all that goes with it. All was going relatively well, except that guy number 4 vanished. He stopped attending classes, didn't so any work, wouldn't answer messages, nothing. So we counted him as lost and resumed as a three piece. Or so I thought.

Week 10 rolled up, two weeks to go before christmas break, 4 weeks before hand in. I proudly finished my physics engine and started working on my physics based game. The graphics stuff still lay there, unchanged, no sign of AI.
Week 12 came around, it was christmas break and I'd finished my game, I had no more work to do...
First week of christmas break rolled by and there were quite a few premonitions of work but none actually appeared. Second week is when suddenly my team burst into a flurry of activity. Guy number four appeared out of no where with a complete lighting system, which I greedily incorporated into my game, and then he vanished again. The graphics stayed the same and still no sign of AI but I was assured that the work was being done.

3 days before hand in work started to appear, first part of a graphics game and some additional features, then some AI that didn't work, but would eventually. Oh goodie. I was bombarded with questions and problems and ideas, none of which I had any time for but couldn't ignore because my grade was on the line.

I'm happy to report that we made hand in with a working game engine, 4 game demos and a report. It all looks like it was put together by drunken monkeys. I've asked for the project to be graded on an individual basis in hope that I can save some of my marks but we'll have to wait and see. The entire thing was very frustrating for me and while I did my best to be Mr. Optimism and Support I came very close to negotiating a solo contract with the module leader.

In the end our demo received praise, the tutor was impressed by the number of features it engine included and said it was a good project. So alls well that ends well I guess, hopefully we've come away with good marks despite the issues and hopefully we all learned something about working as a team.

What did I learn?
Take advice from academics when it's given to you. They've seen countless students fail and succeed and thus, they're in the best position to advise you on such matters.

Friends usually don't make good co-workers.

As flattering as it is to have people leaning on you for support, it doesn't help you stand up straight.

Never underestimate the amount of work a student can get done in one night.

Weakness

This year I've tried to focus more heavily on managing my time. As soon as the assignments were given I allocated time for them. I made sure that I approached all of my school work as a whole instead of the more serialised approach that I took last year. While this has equated to none of my assignments being completed, they are each very nearly finished, and all of them are above passing point according to their associated marking schemes. I'm pretty proud of this achievement, and will be sticking closely to my time management approach, its served me well.

I've identified a couple of weaknesses that I'm going to work on this semester that that's mostly around my programming approach. I'm very much a write now and ask questions, or not, later type of programmer. On my final year project it was mentioned, and this year it's already been mentioned a couple of times and that's testing. I'm lousy at testing, in that, while I test as I go, I don't keep any record of it. So one could say that I don't do any testing at all.

I went to an interview for a placement and was given an exercise to carry out in a TDD situation. I failed this catastrophically. I should know about unit testing, and TDD as I've had a fair amount of exposure to it but I just never use it.
So this semester I'm going to approach all of my programming assignments using TDD. I've seen the quality of the code it promotes first hand and I want to bring myself up to that level.

Another weakness that I tackled early on and feel is worth mentioning is time wasting. This was actually a bigger problem than I realised. There was the phrase I heard that went something like "A lot of time is wasted beating your head against a wall hoping it will turn into a door." I thought about this and realised that I spent a lot of time not understanding stuff. The next time your in a 'beat your head against the wall' situation think about how much time you spend with your head on the desk, or in your hands, or wherever. For me it was a lot. I've sat for hours thinking and fretting about how I don't understand it, or don't get it, or whatever. As soon as I get past that hurdle, the work would get done. But often by that time it was bordering on too late. So initially I focussed on how quickest to get over that hurdle, which is ridiculous now that I'm looking back at it, it's kind of like planning to fail, or trying to take account of your own stupidity. So I determined that there was no need for that hurdle to be there in the first place. I know I don't understand the subject, which is why I'm sitting there trying to learn it. So now when I approach work I find myself struggling to grasp the concept or whatever I push my brain into different mode, usually I just push on, I try things, test things, read things if it comes to that until the concept become more clear.
I tell you, I'm getting twice the amount done as before.

Onward

I'm officially a degree student now.

I've completed my first semester and I must say, it's good being on the degree course, even if it is all the hard classes. Let me explain.

Now that I've completed my HND, awarded with distinction I might add, I'm topping it up to a full blown bachelor's, but in my HND I already took many of the modules, certainly many of the easier ones. So now on the top-up I'm enrolled in all the more difficult modules of the award, and all at the same time. As one lecturer somewhat apologetically put it, "The games top-up students either thrive or die within the first semester."

So here I am, thriving I think. I'm one of only about 4 surviving games HND students and I'm just doing my best to keep up. I must be doing something right because so far it looks like I'm not going to have much, if any, work to do over the Christmas holiday. Just review for the exams.

End of Year 2 and HND

09-05-2012

I completed an exam today that marked the last of all the work for year two of my HND. All being well I'll have a diploma in a couple months and I'll be more than half way to my degree.

I didn't do particularly well this term. By that I mean that I'm pretty confident that I passed but I don't like having less than distinctions and I'm not sure that I got many, if any, this term. I put it down to poor prioritising. I got so stressed and wrapped up in my project that I let it consume all my energy, thus everything else suffered.

Still, I did very well first term, and I had couple of curve balls thrown at me in the second so I'm still pretty pleased with my over all performance.

Things I learned.

Each subject gets equal time until they're completed.

Learn the academic report structure and get used to using it. Introduction, Implementation, Critical Evaluation each having a conclusion. Most of my assignments had some sort of writing element to them and nearly all of them followed that format. Get used to it, learn to like it, because it's everything.

I've definitely picked the right award. I had a class this year that I hated with my very soul and I found it impossible to put any effort into my work. I suspected this was going to be a problem when I decided to go to University and chose my course accordingly, and it looks like I was right.

Consider applying the chosen methodology of your FYP to all of your work. I found this to be a great way to keep everything moving.

Study groups are very helpful, even if you listen more than your contribute, just getting together and reviewing out loud is very useful.

Always read your assignments over and over. I wasted a lot of time on inconsequential or otherwise incorrect aspects of the assignments because I hadn't read the assignment document correctly... or at all.

Conclusion.

So, pending my results I now move on to top-up, which means I become a real boy and move in with all the degree students. Four terms down, three to go.

The Burnout

As a dyslexic I find that my biggest problem at University is burnout. I learned a long time ago that I have a limited mental capacity, I used to call it my mental threshold. People I worked with quickly learned how to identify when I'd reached this point and often would resort to intellectually picking on me when ever I was found in this state by forcing me to engage in a complication conversation.

Burning out for me is the end all. I can't concentrate or focus on anything.
I can't string sentences together. Sort of like a stutter but as well as pronunciation trouble I mix up my word order and often struggle to find the words at all.
I become very clumsy. I'm normally not a particularly clumsy person, I can't dance but that's not dependent on my mental state. After a burnout I find I bump into things and drop everything I pick up spill drinks, everything.
I can't read, words disappear on the page or just plain don't make any sense, it's very irritating.

I drive my wife crazy at home, it's like I'm in a vegetative state, only walking around. As a dyslexic my mind is disorganised at the best of times and adding mental strain to it is cataclysmic.

Burnouts have lasted as long as 6 weeks and can have a huge impact on motivation. I've completely abandoned projects in the past sheerly due to a lengthy burnout, most of which I've never been able to return to, despite my best efforts. When I started looking at University it was near the top of my list of things I'd need to learn to manage if I was going to get through it. I didn't want to let some extended burn out lead to my quitting the course.

I've experienced two major burnouts this year, both were very untimely. The first was just before an exam when I'd been cramming all morning. I answered some of the questions so fantastically poorly that one of my lecturers actually assumed that I'd had some sort of computer problem during the test... sadly I'm honest and owned up to my mistake.

The second was just recently on my FYP. I missed out a couple of key elements of my design and research document, such as the front cover, hopefully it's not going to cost me too many marks.

Prevention:
1. Time-management seems to be the key, not necessarily the allocation of time per task but the listing of the tasks itself it what helps. Somehow knowing what I've still to do delays the burnout.
2. I do my best to keep ahead of all my school work. As soon as I receive a body of work I start on it. Especially if I've still yet to learn anything about how to complete it (which is common in my Uni, they favour the 'here's what you're going to do. Now let's learn ya to do it' approach) If I already have a start on it in some aspect, even if it's just an idea, it's much easier to work on it later.

Handling:
Dealing with a burnout is tricky. I've found that there are two ways that work best.
1. A hobby. I bounce between music and writing. While music is immune, writing can be affected by a burnout, so I rely more on music but I value them both equally as therapies. After an hour or so writing or a jam session with the band I can actually feel my mind enter a state of repair. Usually by the next morning I'm back up to speed.
2. Sleep. It's sometimes really hard to leave something until tomorrow but I find it's usually the best thing to do. Unless the deadline is tomorrow morning, it can wait one night.

The trick is to keep your mind working, just not as hard and not of the same type of thing that caused the burnout in the first place. My school work is all technical thinking and information assimilation, both writing and music are creative outputs.