Resounding endorsement for courses from ECS bloggers

As the first term of the academic year comes to an end, ECS undergraduate students have given a resounding endorsement to their courses and to the quality of the student experience in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

This year the School has more student bloggers than ever before, who have covered a wide range of subjects in the 40+ blog posts posted over the last 10 weeks. The blogs provide a great insight into the lives of ECS students and their perspectives on study and coursework, as well as on a range of events and activities.

The ECS JumpStart induction week was a major subject of comment early in the term:

"I think Jumpstart easily captured the spirit of ECS-it's bizarre but you love it. You are expected to play hard and study hard."

"JumpStart is the first thing that hits anyone arriving at ECS. While it does count a bit for one of the modules, it's not really about the module scores, more the fun that can be had."

Other observations of new experiences have included life in the UK:

"All the food items mentioned by Enid Blyton actually exist and are as tasty as she made them sound."

"Cycling paths do tend to randomly disappear."

... the atmosphere in the ECS labs:

"We have our own /16 IP block [8], and thanks to its pioneering work, there is IPv6, which means Google dances for you."

"The atmosphere here is great: if you don’t understand something or are having difficulty everyone is really nice about it.

"I seemed to have accumulated a fast quantity of free stuff – particular food...I’m not quite sure how, but I must be doing something right!"

... the activities on offer in the School and outside:

"This Wednesday I have a yellow belt Jiu Jitsu exam which I'm really looking forward to. Hopefully if I pass, I will be heading out to the Hobbit (if you come here, make sure you check this place out) to celebrate."

... And of course, the pressure of coursework, project deadlines, and exams!:

"The work has started to ramp up a bit with at least one piece of coursework due a week. Most of the courseworks are just questions sheets, with some questions more fiendish than others, but one large piece we had to do this term was to build an electric motor as a team."

"There is coursework, which in this first term has consisted of building a personal website (that balances formality, with street cred, ahem... I mean informality), and extension of a graphical library, in Java."

"Discrete Maths is the most useful model when you want to show off. What have you been doing? I have been calculating the size of infinity."

As one of the bloggers writes: "It’s been one heck of a term …"

In addition to our first-year bloggers, we also had blog posts from our ECSWomen group who were at the Grace Hopper Conference in the States, reflections from Ian Gilham on returning to ECS after a 12-month placement in Madrid, and veteran blogger James Snowdon’s progression from undergraduate to postgraduate student.

There are also blog posts on work experience and placements on our Careers Hub.

Happy Christmas to all our ECS bloggers and we look forward to more in the New Year!

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.