Pen & Paper Notes

I remember talking to someone who wrote their final university paper with a typewriter and hearing how difficult that was makes me glad that I had a word processor. But even though it has only been two years since I graduated, my Pen & Paper note-taking might be considered Oldschool Already!

Narbacular Drop

I was going to post this earlier in the month, but I am finding it very difficult to manage a full time job and my hobbies.

So anyway before Portal there was Narbacular Drop a Digipen student project that was seen by Valve, the students that made it where hired by ValVe and they then created Portal.

ND is nowhere near as good as Portal, but what ND lacks in quality it makes up in originality, it is interesting to see where the team came from and nice to have a good look at a student project that actually got someone a job.

The Post University Job Hunting Post

I was going to write this once I actually got a job myself, but I know what I want to say, so here is some advice that I didn't get.

On Graduate Job Applications
Lots of companies try and recruit graduates directly from university. Most want a 2:1 degree rating or they arten't interested. And the time you are supposed to apply for these positions is the summer holiday before your final year, not after you graduate.

On Agencies
Agencies are designed to match people with jobs. Unfortunately this means some lame stuff happens on the agency's part. When a company phones them and says they want an office junior with no prior experience the agency will by policy always put a requirement of two years office experience on the job description.

On Part Time Work
If you are going to get a part time job to fund a healthy drinking habit while you are at university, get a job in an office or a shop for two years so you can get some experience marked on your CV. Nobody wants to take a chance on somebody who hasn't done the same job they are applying for someplace else.

On Government Benefits
Unless you have a job lined up after you graduate, sign on for benefits early. Don't do what I did and wast months thinking a job would come soon.

Interesting Day

I have passed this year at uni. Despite failing my Security Module test (still find that puzzling, but whatever) that is ok because it was the only bad mark I got and it wasn't under 30% so that means I pass, apparently.

Been waiting for an email from an organiser that should be able to get me and FooFly into the UK's first Develop Conference next week. I will have to do some chasing tomorrow as I haven't received all the details yet, and I still need to find someplace to stay, but it's happening.

And because I might be going someplace interesting next week and got my graduation the week after I thought now would be a good time to buy a new mobile phone. My Sony Ericsson T610 has served me well, but I wanted it to have a better camera and it takes too long for me to take pictures with it. So I have bought a Sony Ericsson K750i which is very much the same, but has a wicked camera. Simply move the shutter and the camera wakes up and goes into camera mode. Plus the pictures it takes are great and comparable to my digital camera. Am still trying to get it to talk to my PC as it wasn't seeing my Belkin USB adaptor earlier, but I should get something working tonight or tomorrow.

Marks

Just got my marks through and I got an average mark of 53%. I failed my Security module (of all things) and that seems to be because I waffled on the test and didn't talk about the case study as much as I should have. The case studies we got this year where light on details so I did ignore them. Still I have been told that this doesn't mean I will need to resit it or that I have failed the year. I was expecting to do a lot better this year than I have, but looking at my marks overall on the course they have slowly been dropping. Don't know wither that is because more had been expected of us each year or because I have become worn down by the university's various procedures.

Marks

University said this year's marks would be available today where possible online and I thought this meant that maybe two or three of my modules wouldn't have marks attached to them yet. As it is none of my modules have marks attached to them. It might actually be days or weeks before I actually know how I did.

I seem to be experiencing blind confidence in my performance this year. Not sure if that is a good thing or not.