2 November, 2011 in University by Aonghas

An Extra Day’s Grace

Today I woke up later than I wanted to (again) to start another day’s study (again). After a couple of hours I decided that I wasn’t making much progress and the fact that Jeremy Kyle was trying to give advice to another set of bogans on TV in the background didn’t help either. My mum tried to keep me awake by giving me some green tea but I still found it hard to concentrate and actually make some progress. I decided to take a shower and go into uni so that I could start studying with a fresh mind away from anything that might distract me.

When I got into uni I walked through the quad and bumped into Vas and Sushi who were both having lunch. They told me that they had already had an exam and that Systems and Control was their last exam next Wednesday (which is my first exam). They said Wednesday. And I told them it was on Tuesday. But they insisted it was Wednesday so I checked my phone and sure enough they were right! Suddenly a micro sigh of relief passed through me, because it meant I had an extra day to study (believe me, I can do with ANY extra time to study right now), although it also meant I had one less day to study for my other two exams. But that didn’t matter at that moment, because I was most worried about Systems and Control. I headed to the undergraduate labs and found a space to study. There were a couple of other people in the room when I arrived but they left a few hours later. For the rest of the evening I spent my time looking over Laplace transforms and I was pleased when I managed to do some questions I was stuck on last night.

Slowly but surely I think I’m learning. I just hope I’ll be somewhat ready this time next week! Tomorrow I’m planning to go to uni early in the morning, so it’s early bedtime tonight!

29 October, 2011 in Guides and Tips, University by Aonghas

Time to Cram!

Don't be tempted to sleep while you're cramming!

So you look at your calendar and realise your first exam is less than two weeks away and you haven’t studied. At all. Not only that, but you were half asleep in most of your morning lectures so you don’t even know what you were supposed to have learnt. You really have two options in these situations: you can either (a) not study and just wing the exam, hoping for the best or (b) start cramming like there’s no tomorrow. Hopefully if you’re like me, you’ll have come to to the conclusion that simply winging a test or exam never goes down too well, so your only option left of course is to start studying like crazy!

But how are you supposed to cram all that information into what little time you have left? Is it even worth the effort? Although cramming for an exam is never encouraged, desperate times are unavoidable sometimes, and you have to work with what you’ve got. From doing a little research online and from previous experience, there are definitely tips that can help get you on your way to becoming a Master Crammer. Here are some important pointers you may find useful:

Before you start cramming

• Find the right place to study. I often try to study in a silent environment away from others I know I will get distracted by. Avoid places where distractions like TV or Facebook access may become tempting. Some people like to listen to music while they study, but I find that it can be distracting sometimes, especially if the songs have lyrics. I would suggest listening to quiet non-lyrical music if you feel uneasy in a silent environment.
• Good lighting. You will want to study in a well-lit area with enough working space on a table.
• Sit at a table. I try to avoid lying on a sofa or on the floor because these positions get too comfortable and encourage me to fall asleep too easily.
• Be prepared. Make sure you have all the stationery and resources you need before you get into it. It’s not only annoying to have to find a glue stick or highlighter half-way through your study, but it can interrupt your flow of thoughts and concentration.
• Make a plan. Have a rough estimate of how long you want to be studying for each subject/topic. The worst thing would be to spend a whole day studying one topic and still not understanding it, whereas you could have moved on a lot earlier and completed more as a result.

While you are cramming

• Stay focused. It’s easy to let your mind wander about what you’re going to have for dinner/breakfast, what your friends are saying on Facebook, etc. but you can’t let those thoughts distract you. Often when I find myself starting to lose concentration, I remind myself when my exam is and how much I still have left to study. Usually that’s enough to scare me back into study mode.
• Stay hydrated. When people think about studying/cramming for long periods of time (often throughout the night), they immediately think that energy drinks will do the trick. While they may work for some people, I find that green tea or even just hot (not boiling) water works best for me. Milo is good the first time, but if you’re planning to study for a long time you don’t want to have that warm milky after-taste lingering around. Hot drinks help you stay warm during those all-nighters as well!
• Track your progress. You may feel like you’re achieving nothing after several hours of study. Don’t worry, keep going. It’s a good idea to test your knowledge after each chapter/section by trying a practice question or trying to recall facts you have just read.
• Active studying. Don’t just read your notes. Write key points down, say something out loud a few times. Come up with mnemonics to help you remember steps or processes easier. They say that your brain can only remember 5-7 things at a time, so break bigger chunks down and group similar points together to trick your mind into thinking it only has to remember a smaller number of things.
• Look at previous examples. If you have access to previous exam papers, have a look through them beforehand and if you have several years’ worth of previous exams, compare them to see if there are trends. If you have access to the answers as well, don’t look at them before you start studying. Have a go at the questions first, and then see what the answer is. That way you can see how closely you answered the question, and see what you have to change. It’s easy to simply look at the answer and understand it without trying to answer it first, but often it’s coming up with an answer yourself that’s the hardest part.
• Take regular breaks. By regular I mean around once every 3 hours. I find 3 hours to be a good length for each sitting because it’s generally the length of an exam so you can train your mind to concentrate for that long. And by the way, breaks are only supposed to be long enough to go to the bathroom, maybe a quick snack and have a stretch. Don’t even think about going near Facebook.

After cramming

• Lather. Rinse. Repeat. One session of cramming is not enough. I would like to think you would have thought about studying at least a few days prior to your exam and not just the day before. The more cramming sessions you have, the more information you will retain.

All the best with your cramming. I better get back to mine.

28 October, 2011 in Social, University by Aonghas

CompSys Class Rep Lunch

I had Thai green curry for lunch

We’ve been meaning to have a lunch for the CompSys class reps this year but it was always postponed – until today. Thanks to the second year class rep Kenny, we managed to meet up for lunch with Dr Partha Roop, our course director and Head of Department. Partha suggested we go to a Thai restaurant close to uni called Khao Thai, so we met at his office at 12pm and walked down to the restaurant together. The purpose of the meeting was to thank all the class reps for their efforts this year, especially the Part 4 reps Jonathan and Isuru as they are graduating next year, and also to discuss ways in which can give the Computer Systems programme more exposure to businesses and connect with industry. We talked about hosting an event to show businesses in the industry what we’re doing (project work etc) and I also suggested that we make a promotional video that shows what CSE is all about. Partha really liked the idea of a promotional video, so I might get started on it after exams are finished. The lunch was really nice, I had Thai green curry and Partha paid for all of us which was very generous of him!

From left: Aonghas, Kenny Doria, Jonathan Foulkes, Dr Partha Roop, Isuru Pathirana, Haihao Zhang, Jervis Ferreira

7 June, 2011 in University by Aonghas

Two Weeks to Go

In exactly two weeks from now I will have my first of three exams for this semester. My first exam is for the management (ENGGEN 303) course and I’ve got to admit, although the content isn’t conceptually hard to understand for the most part, there is a lot of content to cram into two weeks, not to mention the other two subjects I still have to study for. For the management course we were pretty much introduced to some important aspects of business management, specifically management relating to the engineer. We started off by learning about accounting and all the different financial statements that are usually involved when it comes to dealing with money in the professional industry. Our lecturer’s name for the accounting section of the course was Jordi Garcia, and I created a Facebook fan page just for him after he succeeded in delivering what is perhaps one of the most boring subjects (in my opinion!) in a way that was somewhat interesting. I’ll never forget about the “magic pen” business model he used throughout all his lectures as a way to demonstrate examples. Luke Dickinson, you know what I’m talking about

The second half of the semester focussed more on project management and strategies that businesses use to schedule projects etc. We were taught about innovation and had several guest lecturers come to talk to us about their respective careers involving management of some kind. The only reason I remember this much is because we had to write weekly reflections about what we had learnt in class. They were kind of a pain to do at the time, but I guess in the end the did actually help me retain at least some of what I had learnt in class.

The next two weeks are going to be a tricky balancing act for me as I try to work out how much time to spend on each subject leading up to the exams. I’m sure procrastination and distractions will try their best to lead me off track, but I’m going to do everything I can to stay focussed! Studying at uni till after 10pm tonight is perhaps the first step in achieving that goal!

30 May, 2011 in University by Aonghas

One Week Left

I can’t believe it’s that time again. That time when all the lectures are winding down and everyone starts transforming into their study modes. This week is our last week of classes before we break for study leave. Luckily (or unluckily?) for me, my first exam is two weeks after my last lecture, but it means my three exams are quite close together. The annoying thing is that I can’t really get into full study mode just yet because I have a big 50% project due this Friday. After that I’ll have to cram 12 weeks of material into two weeks and it’s going to be quite a hefty challenge.

During this coming week I’m going to aim to achieve a few things. Firstly, I want to have a proper study plan all done so that I’m ready to get straight into study after I’ve finished my project. I also want to wake up earlier in the morning so that I can make my days more productive. I can do it, I know I can. It’s all just about self-discipline I keep telling myself. Let’s do this!

24 May, 2011 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Hungry Paddle

For the last few weeks we’ve been working on a paired miniproject for our hardware design paper. We were asked to use a development board (kinda like a mini motherboard) to create a basic game where a paddle on the bottom of the screen catches falling balls/eggs. As easy as it might sound, we actually had to write the hardware description code to make everything work. If you don’t know what that means, basically we had to write code that turns pixels on and off at certain times to display animating objects on the screen. The development board we’re using operates at 25MHz and the whole screen refreshes 60 times per second. We worked a lot with binary numbers so we become pretty familiar with representing information in arrays of 1s and 0s. After a lengthy process of coding, we finally completed a functional game which, in my opinion, is pretty addictive!

We gave our game the title “Hungry Paddle” which is shown on the menu screen when it is first loaded. There are two modes of the game – training and the actual game. When the training mode is selected, the user has to catch 10 balls (or “cookies”) at the slowest speed to complete the training level. Next, the user can choose to play the game and has to progress through the levels as the balls get faster and more balls appear on the screen at the same time. In order to move to the next level, the user must collect the required number of balls before the countdown timer reaches 0 seconds. If the user succeeds in all four levels, the game is won. Otherwise if the time runs out, the user loses and can choose to try again from level one.

We have our interview/presentation for our project tomorrow at 2pm so I’m hoping that it will go smoothly. Afterwards we have a six page report due on Thursday and then another project due next week. Pretty hectic times till the end of the semester but I’m sure I’ll get there in the end!

4 November, 2010 in Engineering, Friends by Aonghas

My Only Exam

This morning I had my only exam for the semester (yay!) but I didn’t think I was totally ready for it yet (boo!). I guess I had nobody to blame but myself seeing as it was the only exam I had and there were nearly 2 weeks between the last day of semester and my exam. My exam was held in the Fisher and Paykel lecture theatre and I tried to find a seat that was nearby the front of the room so I could see the clock.

The exam itself wasn’t too bad though there were definitely areas where I felt I could have done a lot better in. A lot better. Towards the end of the exam I was just hoping it would finish soon so I could enjoy my holiday, but I didn’t want to leave early so I could spend as much time as I could trying to answer all the questions.

After I finished my exam I went to have some lunch and I was sitting in the quad when Chen came along. We had a good catch up over lunch (well, while I was eating) and he told me that he was going overseas to China for a holiday. I wish I could go overseas too!

As I was walking back to the bus stop I saw they were doing renovations to the footpath in Albert Park. Maybe next year when I walk through Albert Park it will be all nice and new!

It looked like they were fixing the footpath in Albert Park

22 October, 2010 in University by Aonghas

End of Second Year

Today was the last day of semester at Uni. Although all our lectures had already finished, we still had to go into Uni to give our demonstrations for our project. I wasn’t too fussed about that because I knew that our demonstration would be alright (probably not perfect, but alright! ) and I was looking forward to our class rep lunch afterwards anyway.

At 12pm we had our class rep lunch in the briefing room in the ECE department. The lunch was put on for us as a thank you for our work this year. A few people gave short speeches and our HoD Professor Allan Williamson gave his closing remarks on his thoughts about the year. There was plenty of pizza to go around and I made sure I tried several different kinds.

There was a lot of pizza for us to get full on

The end of the lunch marked the end of my second year as an Engineering student (except for the one exam I still have to sit!). I was thinking of going home since I didn’t really have anything else to do, but luckily I bumped into Caragh and Rebecca near the quad and they invited me to join them to go to the free concert put on for UoA students held in the quad.

When we were allowed into the venue (after being searched for any alcoholic drinks), we were greeted by people dressed in bright yellow giving away free drinks of Lipton ice tea. Since I’m usually too poor to afford drinks like that, I thought I’d take the opportunity to drink as much Lipton ice tea as I could. The promotional representatives even agreed to have a photo taken with me

Me with the Lipton Ice Tea reps

I even saw Calum at the concert with some of his friends. We didn’t stay at the concert too long, maybe because we went when the bands who were not so well-known were performing. It was a nice way to round off a good year at Uni though!

Rebecca and Caragh

21 October, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Garage Door… OPEN!

This whole semester we’ve been working on a project where we had to build a transmitter and receiver for a remote control garage door. This last week has been hectic but towards the end of the week was the business end of the course where we had to give a demonstration to show that it works. There’s actually a lot of technical detail behind the project but I won’t go into it too much.

This week I’ve spent two nights at uni in the labs until 9 and 10pm trying to get the system working and we’ve had a few hiccups along the way. But the bottom line is that we managed to get things working to at the end. Here are some photos from the testing stages:

When we had to give a demonstration of our project, we managed to receive our digital signal at the receiver over a metre away. It was a little disappointing that they didn’t actually have the model garage door for us to physically open so we just had to read our signal off the LED lights.

Our full garage door opening circuit

18 October, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

The Visual Supercity

We’ve been giving presentations over the last couple of weeks about issues facing the new Auckland Supercity and today was my turn to give my presentation. I chose to speak about this idea of a “Visual City” for Auckland. Basically the whole city would be modelled in 3D so that multi-dimensional information could then be superimposed on the model to help city leaders make more informed decisions. It would provide transparency for the public so that they could see changes happen virtually before they became reality. Here is a poster I subsequently made (we had to make one afterwards) that gives an overview of my presentation.

My poster describing the Visual Supercity model

Our presentations were interrupted by a fire drill

A few minutes after I presented, we heard a loud siren bellow out through the building. Admittedly we all ignored the noise at first, but as soon as we saw other people leaving down the hallway, we decided to follow suit. Moments later after we had all assembled outside by the road, we heard firetruck sirens approaching. An array of firetrucks showed up on the scene and some kitted-out firemen emerged from the crowd. Nobody really knew what was going on; we couldn’t see any fire or smoke. Luckily it didn’t appear to be serious and we were all allowed back inside once the all-clear horn was sounded.

The remaining presentations filled the rest of the hour and our teaching assistant Vicky closed with some final remarks. It was our last week of tutorials and I feel like I have learnt a lot about technical communications. Hopefully I’ll be able to use these skills later on in my degree and career.

Me and my teaching assistant Vicky