Keeping on course

I write this a week into the Easter holidays, fully stocked up on rest and in a warm living room, next to a couple of snoozing cats on a comfortable sofa, and in the knowledge that it's equipped with an ever-stocked fridge – the little things you can sometimes take for granted before life in a student house!

I'm also writing in the knowledge that, when I return to Southampton, we'll be but eight or nine weeks away from a long stretch of (hopefully glorious!) summer, and the end of an absolutely incredible second year at University which seems to have flown by.

Having said that, given how I'm writing from my snowed-under Northern home, that season seems worlds away!

Before then, however, the University calendar rolls on. Away from the desk, I'm involved in the Theatre Group's original writing “Showcase” performances, taking place in the Annex Theatre the first week of lectures back (all support would be greatly appreciated!), as well as Assistant Directing a sitcom-style play called Keeping Down with the Joneses in the same location a fortnight later. Plus, after some incredibly exciting news, I'll soon be beginning to rehearse for the comedy play being taken to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, Hanging Bruce-Howard – a show you'll almost certainly be hearing more about in the near future (mainly because I'm so excited by the prospect)!

And that's not to mention the grand occasion of getting suited up for the annual Performing Arts Ball, taking place in a luxurious venue in town at the end of April: three gorgeous courses, a chance to look dapper and to celebrate a year of achievement with incredible friends, all swiftly followed by a night of terrible disco moves. Well, except from the dance-based societies, of course!

The Performing Arts Ball was one of the highlights of my Fresher year, 

and I can't wait for it again this time round.

Nevertheless, summer also brings a familiar nemesis to the student body: the prospect of deadlines and examinations galore. Once again, this is the time to be focusing not so much on the extra-curricular aspects of student life (although they’ll certainly prove a healthy distraction!) and to get my head down in books –sometimes I have to remind myself I'm not taking Thespian Studies!

Because with a deadline or two almost every week following the holidays, and an intense summer exam period looming not long after, it's more important than ever to keep on top of everything related to my course in Software Engineering. After all, I've often been asked, given how much I enjoy partaking in everything performance-based, why I decided to take the subject in the first place.

Personally I never found it easy to know which path to go down academically at any stage, be it selecting my GCSEs, A-Levels or choosing a degree subject. There are normally so many options open, and it's difficult to know, or even guess, what you'll want to do in the years ahead. At this time of the year, lots of students across the country will be facing the same dilemmas, and it's far from easy to make such decisions. Being asked to think about your future when you're already swarmed by exams can seem like a pretty raw deal.

So how to know what to study? Well, my tactic was simply to go for the subjects which I enjoyed the most at all stages of education, knowing that, at the very least, I should have some fun in the future along the way to (fingers crossed) getting the qualification. For example, loving the subject at GCSE standard, I did an A-Level in Latin which, although not particularly strongly linked to technology, was certainly a challenge and added a great deal of variety to my timetable!

Of course, if you've got a particular future in mind (for example, going for medicine), there are some prescribed requirements for many universities’ courses and their offers (so check out prospectuses beforehand). But assuming those have been satisfied, once you enter higher education, I've found that the focus really shifts from learning things from a teacher in a classroom to an individual desire to find things out for yourself.

So, when the going gets tough, like on occasions when exams or coursework inevitably pile up (unfortunately procrastination is an essential part of the student make-up!), it helps to be doing a subject which appeals to what you love. After all, although you're getting a qualification out of the process, you're also getting an education to carry forward as well, so it's important to want to make the most of it – or else you're probably on the wrong programme!

My passion for Software Engineering stemmed from my Computing A-Level. I took the subject in Lower Sixth unsure of whether I'd enjoy it, but, harnessing a long-term desire to learn how to program, I found myself enraptured by the sheer expressive power of coding – it's not nearly as boring to me as it seems to others! Sure, it can be frustrating from time to time (on one occasion last semester I spent three solid hours on six lines of code – and it still didn't work!), but the satisfaction of seeing a problem well solved, an algorithm correctly crafted, or a program come together (and work!) surpasses all niggles along the way.

Furthermore, Software Engineering has revealed to me that making programs is not just about tapping away at a keyboard, but also utilising many underlying processes which support it to make sure a computer system is built to do its job well. Taking on the course has completely opened my mind and contextualised plain programming in many different environments, such as professional design methodologies (often involving mocking up packed diagrams which show how a program works), different types of systems and even socio- and biological aspects, like Human-Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence, areas which continue to fascinate me in every lecture.

Lots of people bring their laptops to lectures to look up topics on the fly 

or catch up on anything they might've missed.

Conversely, as was the way at school, there are modules on the course which I find don't directly appeal to me, with some topics going completely over my head! But, however cliché it sounds, you generally find that everyone has different interests, strengths and weaknesses, and marks seem to balance out at high scores. You’ll be exposed to a great variety of areas of research regardless of your degree, and it's up to you to go about finding your interest niche.

To this end it's always a good idea, when selecting optional modules, to check out the scope of a module before picking it, or, if there’s a compulsory module which isn't your thing, I think it's a case of battling through it, doing enough work to get the best marks you can in the assurance that there's something more suited to your tastes around the corner.

It all builds up to an exciting climax to the year. Amidst all of the other activities in the summer term, I'm going to be picking a topic for my third year project (the course equivalent of a dissertation), which is a fairly intimidating prospect. Nevertheless, I think I know what I'd like to do with it, and because of that, I'm actually quite excited to get going with it – although I can't promise I'll be saying the same a week before deadline!

So despite the constant presence of the Performing Arts in my calendar, adding variety and further excitement to everyday life, I'm happy to say that, so far at least, I'm keeping on top of my course. I can’t wait to see what it throws up next!

Robin