Wow, it has been quite a while since my last blog post and it has been excessively busy, its been about since the end of the summer and we are coming into the new summer.Originally I wanted to just have my blog for stuff I did at Kainos so I did not see any reason to keep it going after that, then I decided that I did want a blog but would migrate it to my own personal website however being a student the finacial situation is extremely poor. Its really just take it week by week and hope that I can make it to the summer. Even with the strains I have managed to do quite a bit this year.
Again I became a class rep the same as last year, I somewhat forgot how much work it is. Being a class rep is not always difficult but I tend to do things properly when I do them so that means dealing with every issue a student may have, being supportive and encouraging and helping them in their personal difficulties (as if mine were not enough to deal with). I won an award for it last year but I do not think I will this year, I have been active in the Student union, I have done a fair bit of voluntary work but I haven't had much extra time to do enough.
I am organising regular Hackathon events, something that I have put a lot of work into this year. Something I have learned the hard way this year is that bureaucracy is often the death of innovation. I had to fight tooth and nail to get my Hackathon going. The department officially from the start were in support of it but I hit so many walls and it took a whole semester to sort out. Now that it is I hope that the IT Sligo Hackathon will continue for years after I am gone. Once it is organised it is easy to re organise. There was crap with rooms, and resources and time and insurance and health and safety and....... blah blah blah. Hence it took a semester to organise but I learned that you just keep trucking no matter what, if you stop in the middle thats time wasted, if you keep going you will at least get something out of it.
I took part in the Games Fleadh which was a brilliant experience. Hard work though, I came in on a project because of words from a lecturer who said that good coders where needed, we managed to build an alright game from basically very little in 2 weeks. Far from perfect but at the same time I was very happy with what I managed to accomplish in such a short time, with so little prior knowledge and not much help in 2 weeks. I think it should a sort of adaptability I never knew I had. Of course we did not win anything but the experience was vital and I got to hear presentations from some great entrepreneurs and companies. It was very good and now I can go back prepared next year AND KICK ASS. Which will not be easy with the Queens crew about :) my good friend Peter Lockharte (Games dev in QUB) took home 3 awards including most innovative gameplay. It was very very good. Someone I'm proud to have as a friend. My college IT Sligo took home 1 for best sound which was my best friends (http://circlessuck.blogspot.com/) team and Queens University Belfast took home 5 or 6 in total so we have hot competition for next year, they have teams of good people whereas I am finding it difficult to find anyone to be on a team with who is up to grade. I wonder how human cloning is coming along. :P I think the moral of the story is I keep good friends since so many of them took home prizes.
On the down low sort of also I am always going around helping people who get stuck on programming related problems, this is a time cow, it sucks up a lot of time because I dont just tell them the answer I try to explain why so they will know for the future, there is a big divide between the very good and the bad in my course. There has been times that I have had to show people fairly basic programming concepts multiple times and still not have gotten them. Its why it is a time cow(turn of phrase on cash cow).
I could go on but that just the main part of what I have been doing, I've been getting speakers in for the college and doing some side projects of course doing and keeping my CA up to a first class honour aswell there is actually much more but I could go all day, its been a good and fairly productive year, now that it is coming up to summer time I guess its back to Belfast my 2nd home to get some vital work experience and soak in the genius of my fellow developers in there. May not have mentioned I am an intern software engineer for Kainos also so its been quite the year in review and its far from over. The thing I would love to do is set up a Coder Dojo but without me being here during the summer I'd have to find someone to take care of it but I would love to have the opportunity to go to something like that when I was young which is the reason I am so enthusiastic about setting one up in my area.
Again I became a class rep the same as last year, I somewhat forgot how much work it is. Being a class rep is not always difficult but I tend to do things properly when I do them so that means dealing with every issue a student may have, being supportive and encouraging and helping them in their personal difficulties (as if mine were not enough to deal with). I won an award for it last year but I do not think I will this year, I have been active in the Student union, I have done a fair bit of voluntary work but I haven't had much extra time to do enough.
I am organising regular Hackathon events, something that I have put a lot of work into this year. Something I have learned the hard way this year is that bureaucracy is often the death of innovation. I had to fight tooth and nail to get my Hackathon going. The department officially from the start were in support of it but I hit so many walls and it took a whole semester to sort out. Now that it is I hope that the IT Sligo Hackathon will continue for years after I am gone. Once it is organised it is easy to re organise. There was crap with rooms, and resources and time and insurance and health and safety and....... blah blah blah. Hence it took a semester to organise but I learned that you just keep trucking no matter what, if you stop in the middle thats time wasted, if you keep going you will at least get something out of it.
I took part in the Games Fleadh which was a brilliant experience. Hard work though, I came in on a project because of words from a lecturer who said that good coders where needed, we managed to build an alright game from basically very little in 2 weeks. Far from perfect but at the same time I was very happy with what I managed to accomplish in such a short time, with so little prior knowledge and not much help in 2 weeks. I think it should a sort of adaptability I never knew I had. Of course we did not win anything but the experience was vital and I got to hear presentations from some great entrepreneurs and companies. It was very good and now I can go back prepared next year AND KICK ASS. Which will not be easy with the Queens crew about :) my good friend Peter Lockharte (Games dev in QUB) took home 3 awards including most innovative gameplay. It was very very good. Someone I'm proud to have as a friend. My college IT Sligo took home 1 for best sound which was my best friends (http://circlessuck.blogspot.com/) team and Queens University Belfast took home 5 or 6 in total so we have hot competition for next year, they have teams of good people whereas I am finding it difficult to find anyone to be on a team with who is up to grade. I wonder how human cloning is coming along. :P I think the moral of the story is I keep good friends since so many of them took home prizes.
On the down low sort of also I am always going around helping people who get stuck on programming related problems, this is a time cow, it sucks up a lot of time because I dont just tell them the answer I try to explain why so they will know for the future, there is a big divide between the very good and the bad in my course. There has been times that I have had to show people fairly basic programming concepts multiple times and still not have gotten them. Its why it is a time cow(turn of phrase on cash cow).
I could go on but that just the main part of what I have been doing, I've been getting speakers in for the college and doing some side projects of course doing and keeping my CA up to a first class honour aswell there is actually much more but I could go all day, its been a good and fairly productive year, now that it is coming up to summer time I guess its back to Belfast my 2nd home to get some vital work experience and soak in the genius of my fellow developers in there. May not have mentioned I am an intern software engineer for Kainos also so its been quite the year in review and its far from over. The thing I would love to do is set up a Coder Dojo but without me being here during the summer I'd have to find someone to take care of it but I would love to have the opportunity to go to something like that when I was young which is the reason I am so enthusiastic about setting one up in my area.
Cool post man. Now I just need to do one.
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