Satisfied Customers and Future Planning

Got an email from a satisfied customer whose son has successfully navigated the first year. Good stuff. I tell everybody who will listen (which is not as many as it should be - believe me) that the first year is the worst one of the course. If you can get through year 1 you can start to enjoy the course and the subject even more in year 2.

The order of business in year 2 should be to build on what you know and set yourself up with a good final year project. Start thinking about ideas for something you'd like to create. Talk to people you know who are in business who might have a bit of blue sky development that they'd like doing for free. Talk to people about neat aspects of the technology, for example Smartphones, connected technology, smart devices etc and see if you can spark an idea off them. Then around christmas you can put together a proposal you can sell to the department and get a supervisor for. We'll be producing a list of things for students to have a go at, but there is nothing like a project you enjoy doing to make the final year serious fun. And they go down great with potential employers too. In the meantime, of course, enjoy the summer...

 

Presents

One of my students came round with a pressie for me today. She has just graduated with a first class degree and I was her project supervisor. I gave her one of my unique, collectable T shirts in exchange. Unfortunately they are all extra large, but I reckon with a few boil washes it might get down to fit her. Anyhoo, thanks Ope, and best wishes for the future.

I can remember replacing a broken one washing machine with a new one some years ago. Like a fool I loaded the new machine up with clothes and fired the thing up. And it promptly boil washed the contents and ruined everything (there is a lesson about testing here folks). One of my finest consumer moments that:

"I'm sorry sir, we don't deliver replacements on Saturday."
"Well, that's a bit sad"
"Why is that sir?"
"Because it means I'll have to spend tomorrow morning with a placard standing outside your store reminding all the passers by of this fact and what the brand new machine you just sold me did to my clothes."
"Er, I'll just have a word with my supervisor"

The replacement arrived the following morning....

 

Another Problem Solved

We had a staff development day yesterday. Learnt a few things and, during coffee, solved on of the age old problems of the world:

Why does santa live at the North Pole?

It's easy. It is to do with directions. Santa asks the way to your house. "Easy", say the elves, "Just go south".

 

Improvement

We got improved today. We had a staff development day where the whole department at Hull learnt how to do things like design courses and assessments. A good time was had by all. It is nice when you can all just get together and talk about what you do. I'm not sure how much we learnt really - over and above the fact that we seem to be quite good at what we do already. But I think we impressed the teacher.

 

Term End

The students have all gone (except for the postgrads) and the exam results and degree classifications have been posted. I think the academic year is now just about over. People think that I now go on holiday until September. I wish. The next couple of months will be spent re-jigging the course contents, preparing new material, setting up labs and probably a bit of research if I can find the time. Oh, and I'd quite like a holiday.

Perhaps I should teach history. There is a lot of it about and the really old stuff doesn't change much. And you can be as subjective as you like and get away with it. Computers aren't quite like that. Every year we have to rework big chunks of our course because of new technology or technique coming down the tracks. We simply could not get away with teaching the same thing year after year (this is of course deeply disrespectful of historians, but just goes to show how little I know about history). Actually, one of our history professors got awarded the OBE in the recent honours list. Perhaps I should ask him what he does.

 

Down to Donny

Down to Doncaster for an exam board. They usually reserve a parking space for me (yes I am that important). This time they didn't seem to have done that, so I drove around disconsolately for a while before parking quite a way away. Thence to the meeting. Ray looks out of the window. "I guess you didn't need your parking space then Rob" he said, indicating the single empty space in the park right next to the office. Just where I hadn't looked. Ho hum. My favourite from the reports "..improved security by the use of usernames, passwords and fireballs". Now that is the kind of system management I want in on.

 

Ah yes, the football

Ho hum. Made the mistake of watching the last five minutes of the England vs France game today. My favourite bit was when the commentator said

And the worst thing that england could do now is let in a....

English player brings down french chap in penalty box with huge, desperate, illegal tackle

...goal.

I don't follow football particularly. And this is looking like an increasingly good move...