Tuesday 31 May 2011

Final year at university

I thought I would share some of the aspects of my final year and why I have been so busy. The final year was by far the most challenging for me. Throughout the year I covered 8 modules on a range of subjects. I did some C# programming and some PHP website development.


The most exciting parts for me though were the advanced database modules and the final year project. In the first advanced database module we focussed on data warehousing and star schemas. This was something I hadn’t done before so I found it very interesting. I would post the assignment and solution but university may use the same case study next year so I don’t want to give away the answers!


In the second advanced database module, we looked at PL/SQL procedures and functions. I also worked with PL/SQL for the majority of my placement year so I found a fairly complex function and procedure to impress my tutors.


The rest of my modules were based on a final year project. The idea behind this was to follow the waterfall project lifecycle to create a product following each stage. I completed this project as a member of a two-person team rather than on my own, which meant significantly more progress could be made.


As part of the modules I also had to write three 3500 word essays. The first outlined the scope for the project and a range of project planning documents. The second report was a research report that looked at a range of journals, books and other websites to give us ideas for our product. The final report was an evaluation of the project as a whole and considered aspects that went right as well as what went wrong and how this could be improved in the future.


I thought it would be good to give an overview of what I did in my final year so any potential future computing students as well as employers within the industry could get an idea of what was involved.

Blog Neglected

Well unfortunately due to a very busy year at university and work along side of that my blog got neglected. You can however expect this to change for the foreseeable future, I have revamped my blog and intend to be blogging much more. I want to pass on some of the new things I’m learning as my career further progresses. You can also find me at ODTUG Presenting two APEX presentations in June. So come back soon to see my newest blogs!