Exams over, but no celebrations

The only thing I don't like about being a student is taking exams. As I was telling someone, an exam is like a FA Cup match. No matter how well prepared you are, you can never guarantee that you will win the match. Exams are also disadvantageous to older students, where our "RAM size and processor speed" are not as high as they used to be.

Should an assessment be solely testing your understanding of a topic? With the tight time constraint in an exam, the answers are more instinctive than well thought, so it isn't really a very fair test of understanding. Or perhaps a fair test should cover a person's capability to memorize all the details in their heads, and the ability to form (hand written) answers from them in the shortest time? Maybe, but with information so easily available nowadays, perhaps this ability is not as crucial as in the days gone past when information is restricted to selected experts and libraries. Besides, tight time constraint isn't really that crucial in the engineering world, where the ability to generate a precisely correct answer, even if it takes more time, is preferred over giving a half correct answer -- being as useless as a totally wrong answer-- in half the time.

And that is why I feel quite frustrated after finishing the exams. I know that the answers that I have submitted is not a good indication of the knowledge that is up here in my head. If there isn't that 2 hours time pressure there, I would certainly be able to come up with a perfect (ok, a much better) answer, yes, even if I am not allowed to refer to my notes.

I much prefer open assessments (or as we call it in TP, "assignments"), not that it is easier. Open assessments are more like a NBA Play-Off series. It is a longer process, but besides giving you a chance to recover from an "off-day", I feel it is a more accurate test of a person's ability to apply his knowledge in the real world. But of course from the examiner's point of view, there are issues not present in closed book exams which needs to be tackled, plagiarism being one of them. Here in York, plagiarism is taken very seriously and the university put in lots of effort to ensure every student thoroughly understands what plagiarism is all about. But that would be a topic just as lengthy for another blog entry.

Block 2

With all the assignments for Block 1 subjects submitted, it's time for Block 2! Block 2 is a short one, just one week. We'll have one intense week of "Practical Software Project Management" plus "Java refresher" from 9.15am to 5.15pm(almost) every day this week. But PSM* doesn't end after this week. In fact, it is just the beginning for this 20 credits subject. We'll be divided into groups and be working on a project which will last till the summer semester.

* Acronym for the subject. Like TP, each subject has a acronym, but for York it is 3 letters instead of 4. The acronym for Java Refresher is JAR.

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!

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.

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.

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.