Assessments in next two weeks

Well, time flies, especially so when a block is only 3 weeks long!

The assignments for the subjects in the first block will be released this Friday, and as luck won't have it, the assignment for the most difficult subject, "Formal Specifications" will be the first to be released and submitted. You can get an idea of what this subject involves from the image below(click on image for full size), which is a screenshot from a page of its lecture notes.

As the marks in the assignments counts for 100% of the subject grade, I will be spending all my time in the next two weeks doing them. So, blogs entries, if any, for the next two weeks, will be few, short and trivial.

Wish me luck!

Not Previously Seen - Part 1

Here is a picture of some stuff which I don't see in Singapore:

My "Formal Specifications" lecture notes listed a proposition¹: jaffa cakes are biscuits. So to find out whether the proposition is true or false, I bought some. Jaffa Cakes are a kind of biscuit covered with chocolate, wrapped around grape flavoured jelly. It taste quite good too.

The white disc in the picture is called a flying saucer. It looks like a toy but is actually a candy. The shell is made of flour and the hollow contains sour candy powder.

We have avocado in Singapore, but this is a rather large one that cost 68 pence (around S$2). The pen is placed there to give perspective to the sizes of the objects.

¹ A proposition in mathematical logic is a statement that is either true or false.

First week of full timetable

So, time is starting to pass quickly. We have started the full timetable for one week and things are getting hectic. As mentioned in my previous post, the time table is in "block mode". For the non-TP readers, this means that instead of spreading all the subjects out evenly over the term, we do lesser subjects in intense "blocks" of smaller number of weeks.

My first "block" is 3 weeks long with 2 subjects. My initial feel is that this is better for learning as there is less context switching. However, the student must be very conscientious during lesson, and keep up with all the given homework. Otherwise, there'll be no time to catch up once you are lost.

For CCA, I have signed up with the Singapore Society (must support, right?), Yoga Society and the Astronomy Club. Actually I'll like to join more clubs (Tai Chi, Outdoors, Skydiving etc), but studies have to come first (and it isn't cheap as each club cost at least 4 pounds, I was told imposed by the Uni, to join). The Yoga Society is surprisingly very popular, and about 60 students turned up for the first session. Hopefully, some (or most) of them will drop out as it is difficult to follow the instructor with such a big crowd.

The Astro Club met up for the first time last night at the campus observatory. This is a small one, with only about 30 members in total. Last night's attendance wasn't very good because the rugby world cup finals was playing live at the same time. We learned how to use the telescope, which is quite easy, with technology to help track the stars. But it was really cold last night (3C maybe?), so we have to stop after about 1 and half hours as everyone was freezing. I could hardly write my name as my fingers were too numb to feel the hold of the pen.

It's good to be a student again!

Academic calendar or rather, Best time to visit

Here is a summary of my academic calendar:
Autumn semester: 8 Oct - 16 Dec 2007
Christmas vacation: 17 Dec - 6 Jan 2008
Exams: 7 Jan - 13 Jan 2008
Spring semester: 14 Jan - 16 Mar 2008
Easter vacation: 17 Mar - 20 Apr
Exams: 21 Apr - 27 Apr 2008
Summer semester: 28 Apr - 29 Jun 2008
(but Project and Dissertation continues till end Sep 2008)
Summer vacation: 30 Jun - Oct 2008

As you can see, the assessments are at the beginning of the subsequent semester. Thank you, York, for being so considerate to give us sufficient time to study, and thus spoiling our vacation.

Anyway, if you are planning to visit, try to do it in the early part of the vacations. That will be the best time I can give you undivided attention.

Platform 9-3/4

Well, I supposed this would not merit a post by itself if not for Harry Potter.

Went to the railway station at the city centre yesterday to buy the Young Person's Pass (ok, I am not young, but mature students are also entitled to it) which will give me 30% discounts on trains tickets. After that, I wandered on to the platform (apparently tickets only need to be shown after boarding), and was pleasantly surprise to see another familiar scene from Harry Potter. The photos are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/puayc/tags/railwaystation/

Apparently, there is a real Platform 9-3/4 at London's King Cross station, which can be reached via a direct train from York.

The class

The MSc (Software Engineering) course is surprisingly enough, the most popular taught MSc in the Comp Science department. There are about 30 of us, and as far as I know, there is only one British. And surprise surprise, I am not the oldest in the class. The honour goes to the British, and he is almost 60 years old.

As for the professors, well, we have not met all of them yet as the full timetable kicks in only next week. Those that we have met seemed nice enough, typical professors in a university.

The timetable

So another week has passed. This is Week 1 of the autumn semester. We have started classes with a refresher on Discrete Mathematics, but the full timetable will begin only in Week 2. My timetable is arranged in what we would call "blocks" in TP. I will be taking 2 subjects in "Block 1", from Weeks 2 - 4. with open assessments for these subjects in Weeks 5-6. "Block 2" is only one week in Week 7, where we'll have a intensive "Practical S/W Engineering and Project Management" mdoule, and a Java refresher course. "Block 3" is from Weeks 8 - 10, where we will be taking two exam-able subjects. The exams are in Week 1 of the Spring semester in January next year.

So this semester will be quite intensive, averaging about 24 contact hours per week.

The Spring semester, starting first week of January, will be less intensive, where we will be doing our "electives". The summer semester and vacation will be for the project and dissertation.

Leeds

Map of Leeds
Went with a group of friends to Leeds yesterday. It is about an hour's bus ride from the York city centre. As this is a day trip and we went in the late morning, we only have a few hours to walk around the shopping district, Leeds university, and buying groceries from a Chinese supermarket.

The impression is that Leeds is like any other big, busy cities. People are less friendly, more rude, and there are areas which you feel unsafe and should avoid if possible. The upside is that it is more convenient to get stuff that are familiar to home, and cheaper prices for daily necessities.

Overall, I am glad to be in York rather than some big cities like Leeds. If the reputation of the degree is not top notched, then at least the environment and atmosphere has to be something I couldn't have experienced in Singapore (or the top university that might have been.)

Leeds photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/puayc/sets/72157602296056460/

The students

This week is orientation week for those who have signed up for it. Singapore is well represented, and the number of Singaporeans here is more than what I had expected. We are the most well-represented country in the orientation program among the countries in SE Asia. There are of course many international students here. As term proper starts only next week, most of the students I have meet so far are international students, mostly from Europe and Asia, plus others from Americas and Carribean. I supposed the British students would be coming in next week as most of them live off-campus as new and international students get priority for campus accomodation.

And many of them will be studying courses that would be considered as "unconventional" and "economically un-viable" back in Singapore, like astrophysics, philosophy, linguistics, post-war recovery, archeology to name a few.

It's going to be an interesting time here.

The coming term

The campus is quite peaceful this week as the term officially starts next week. When that happens, I was told the campus will be swarmed with students with lots of activities. I guess campus are the same everywhere, it reminds me of the contrast in activity level in TP between Week 0 and Week 1.

There are three terms in the academic year. From the online course schedule, my first term is going to be quite heavy as I will be doing 5 out of the required 8 modules. The remaining 3 modules will be in Term 2, and I supposed Term 3 will be for completing the project. If you are thinking of visiting me, I'll give you an update via email on my workload as I will only get my confirmed timetable next week.

The Hostel

Given all the nice scenery around us, the view from my hostel room is quite a let down as it is overlooking a car park. As we are in the countryside, it gets quiet at night, that is if there are no noisy students disturbing the peace of the night. Just now, while eating dinner in my hostel's kitchen, I can even hear the cows moo-ing in the distance.

Yeah, it's been a long time since I don't have to hear the sound of traffic at night. I suppose we all get use to the busy background noise in Singapore, but I do believe it has a negative effect on our well-being. You don't realize how noisy Singapore is until you get to a quiet place. I find that I can concentrate much better in my room than back in my apartment in Singapore.

My room space is quite big (matched equally by the rental -- bye bye allowance), and can comfortably fit in two other sleeping person. However, the attached toilet is really small. There is hardly space to spread out your arms when showering, and it feels a bit like trying to bathe in a pipe.

Each hostel block consist of flats. The flat here would correspond to what we call a unit in Singapore. Each flat consist of six rooms with a kitchen. So far, I have only seen 3 of my flatmates: One from India, US and British. Maybe more will move in next week because someone told me that there are many postgraduates who have now decided to transfer to my hostel, which is a exclusively for postgrads only. It's never a good idea to stay with undergrads.
Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/puayc/sets/72157602302351539/

The City

The York area is a historical area, dating back all the way to the Roman Empire. I was told it won a tourism award this year, and is the 2nd most visited city in UK after London. The city itself has no tall or modern building architecture. Not counting the churches and castles, the building in the photo on the right is about one of the tallest in York city.


There is this area, called the Shambles, which looks very much like a scene out of Harry Potter (Diagon Street?-- someone please post the correct name in the comments(Diagon Alley, thanks to Soh -- the town in Episode one where he went to get his wand and bank).


The area around the university itself is also very country side, with typical English country houses.

See the photos here:
City http://www.flickr.com/photos/puayc/sets/72157602296001492/
Campus outskirts
http://www.flickr.com/photos/puayc/sets/72157602302338503/

The University

The university is built around a lake, so the scenery is very pretty.

And there are lots of wild ducks (mandarin ducks mallards, mostly), geese and some other birds which I do not know the names of, and this is already nearing winter. One of the speakers during orientation joked that he's not too sure about York's ranking in the league table, but he is certain that we're top in ducks vs students ratio.

I was told that when spring and summer comes, there'll be lots more birds and we'll be able to see ducklings in tow too. Well, the downside of this is that we have lots of droppings on the pavement, and it is quite yucky as it is impossible to avoid stepping on them.

See my photos of the campus http://www.flickr.com/photos/puayc/sets/72157602296012322/

Welcome!

Okie, almost one week's up, so what have I been up to at York? Read on for details...