Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: TrashMan on October 03, 2005, 06:04:39 am
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Great...jsut great.
Guess what I read in the newspaper today - Croatias minister of Education sez that classes may be held on saturdays from now on due to the need ot keep up with some iffy process or something.
just great.. I'm on the third year on the Faculty of Electrical Engeenering, computer Sciences and naval Architecture and I got this now.
Wouldn't be too bad except the faculty is in the town of Split, so suring the weekdays I live there in an apartment. On weekends I come hom to some home cooking, my family and my PC.
so now that the new school year started I fuge i have 2 days a week time to do modding, right? WRONG!
If this turns true I got only one day..oh and let's not forget the fact that that I'm member of hte Church choir (Sunday morning on mass and evening on rehersal) and a klapa (something similar to a barbershop quartet). Not to mention that I'm bound to have some homework to do, writing programs and seminars....:mad:
This might mutlilate my modding efforts totaly....
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http://www.bologna-berlin2003.de/pdf/Croatia.pdf
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........
Students here have classes Monday through Saturday, from 7:30 AM until 6 PM (or later).
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French system has Sunday (morning?) classes in secondary education, I think. Although that's not at the same level as here.
I only did weekdays in terms of scheduled classes at uni, but most of the time I also worked a lot at weekends; in some cases till late at night on the important course/project work.
Although there's no requirement in the Bologna Process to actually have weekend studying; It's just a set of formalisations for the standards of higher level education. Interestingly, the UK structure doesn't match the Bologna description (although their course lengths are just recommendations IIRC); the bachelors equivalent is 4 years long - if you get an honours - compared to 3 specified in the Bologna Process, and the Masters is only 1 (compared to 2 in the process). Although I'd guess the honours part of BSc overlaps with the first year of the masters, so there's not IMO a huge difference.
It does make sense to have rationalisation, though; otherwise the complexity means that you risk having your qualifications become worthless as soon as you look to work abroad, because of the difficulty of comparison. I'm not sure why the Croats would decide they needed another day of the week to work in, though; their own statement indicates it's more of an organization and funding problem than students not doing enough work (although misfocused work - i.e. too much studying. Apparently).
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All I can say is...HA!
The singapore government just removed saturday classes for the educational institutions here. You only have to go if you're working part time and taking up a part time course, but that's it! :p
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Six day school weeks?
Thank God I live in a relatively sane country. I don't think I vould take that.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
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What kind of student are you? Just DON'T GO.
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Originally posted by vyper
What kind of student are you? Just DON'T GO.
I'm tempted to make a snide Cally remark here, but truth be told it would just be due to petty annoyance at them cancelling their January starts without telling anyone. Bastards.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Great...jsut great.
Guess what I read in the newspaper today - Croatias minister of Education sez that classes may be held on saturdays from now on due to the need ot keep up with some iffy process or something.
just great.. I'm on the third year on the Faculty of Electrical Engeenering, computer Sciences and naval Architecture and I got this now.
The obsession with wet navy design becomes clear now.
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I only have classes three days a week. Last semester it was two days a week. I make sure to arrange my classes so they are all on the same days, which gives me ample time to study and do homework on the other days. I live at home and the university is about a hour's drive each way, so this also saves a lot of commute time.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
I'm tempted to make a snide Cally remark here, but truth be told it would just be due to petty annoyance at them cancelling their January starts without telling anyone. Bastards.
Why, you planning on coming our way?
Edit: Btw, wouldn't bother me a bit - even Paisley students are having a go at us over this "rebranding". :nervous:
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Hahaha.
What's great about that is that Croatia's schools are actually pretty advanced compared to EU countries' programs, yet it doesn't mean anything at all anywhere. Best you can do with a degree is use it as toilet paper to wipe your ass with.
And now you get to stay there Saturdays for nothing :yes:
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Originally posted by mikhael
The obsession with wet navy design becomes clear now.
Erm..I don't learn all of that ya know.. you select a single branch.. imy case something along hte line of Computer Sciences.
The wet navy thing is the result of my father being a ship captain and me being nuts aboutmilitary in general :D
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Originally posted by vyper
Why, you planning on coming our way?
Edit: Btw, wouldn't bother me a bit - even Paisley students are having a go at us over this "rebranding". :nervous:
I was going to apply to the Games MSc in January... had they not cancelled that start. Mainly because it's a) the only games related Masters in Glasgow and b) it had NQ funding for the fees. Took me about a month to get through the informationy people, hence why I never got to apply for September.... the course webpage had Jan starts for last year, but they never updated it and apparently have stopped. ****s.
I got accepted to 2 other really neat courses for September, but didn't go because there was no funding for them; I simply can't afford to pay 3 1/2 grand.
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Try again next year, the Games courses are very popular. Masters is the only one worth anything though. The rest of us (BSc Comp) spit on the BSc Games Dev people.
Well.. not literally... most of the time.
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How are the school days structured. What does an extra day of classes give that cannot be accomplished in 5 days?
I always found university was the best structure...each class was 3 hours every week with possibilty of 4 or 5 hours per class if you had a tutorial. Ultimately you got alot of time for individual study...which is a powerful way to get people to work...even when it looks like they are slacking off...because at one point or another they have to pick up their socks and get working.
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Originally posted by vyper
Try again next year, the Games courses are very popular. Masters is the only one worth anything though. The rest of us (BSc Comp) spit on the BSc Games Dev people.
Well.. not literally... most of the time.
Games BSc' tend to be embedded systems design by another name, anyways. I remember one of my lecturers - really nice guy, champion ranter - being somewhat scathing of 'games' degrees. What he said was, "if you want to program games, be a **** hot programmer", which is nice and all, except that we did Java which isn't exactly de-riguer in that instance.
Although my main aim was Advanced CS at Glasgow, which basically lets you pick 12 topics, read them up, and then do a dissertation project; so I could have done, say, a project on wireless mobile games. That was a single competitive stundentship, though, which I lost out on. **** knows how.... I think I came pretty close to breaking the Strathclyde exam results records on a few occasions, I've been told they 'think very highly' of me by my former boss. Probably cos I wasn't a Glasgow student; they tend to favour their own by all accounts.
To be fair, a lot of it comes down to funding and the need to help along some of the thicker people (although AFAIK the course had and still has a very good reputation; certainly when I was applying I was being unanimously told it was the best), otherwise we'd probably have been using C++ for, say, Graphics.
They also screwed up the Embedded Systems Design course quite a lot, mind you, and never organized any of the C programming that would've been the coursework. Shame, because ESD was one of the most interesting classes I've ever taken... i might even do a course at the ISLI next year if I'm still stuck for work.
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Which reminds me, someone needs to help me think up ideas for my honours topic.
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In what kind of area are you supposed to have a topic?
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Interactive Multimeda (specialist stream choice), but it has to be something hardcore.
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How hardcore? What kind of depth should it entail? Programming in C++, or more web-oriented languages? A mixture of the two?
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You've not done it yet? I thought you were a year below me.......
Um, I did mine on
[q]LOWE6. "Championship Manager" for Speedway
This project would research the mixture of good AI, good HCI, and good database technology which makes a computer game such as (Football) Championship Manager successful and popular.
Having decided upon a set of factors necessary for a successful game, this knowledge would then be applied to Speedway, another sport requiring good tactical awareness on behalf of the team manager as well as skill on the part of the riders.
A knowledge of speedway is not necessary as the rules can be easily learnt in under an hour (email Helen Lowe for a short note on the rules of speedway). An interest in artificial intelligence and computer games is a distinct advantage.
Graphics are not necessary for this game, as it primarily about strategy, although special effects of some kind could be incorporated if it was felt that this was desirable (and possible in the time available). [/q]
(http://www.aldo14.f2s.com/speedway_manager/sm.html; delivering one of the thickest reports in living memory.....my supervisor is actually dead now, natch. Cancer.)
Wasn't actually my first choice; it was, I think, 2 or 3 on a shortlist of 6 we picked.
See https://www.cis.strath.ac.uk/teaching/ug/cs4notboard/projects/proj_offerings.html for the Strathclyde examples (they didn't have this when I was there, actually; it used to be all restricted local access). It was possible to pick your own - one girl I knew did, IIRC - but most of us found out something they liked from it.
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My idea would be something involving webcams, laptops, interactive whiteboards, and a 'follow-classes-from-home' kind of thing. Would make a lot of people very happy, not to mention those who are limited in their movement.
Off course, such systems already exist, but you could add all sorts of fun features.
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My gut tendency would be something involving ubiqiutous/mobile computing with a UI; albeit that thing about the computerized beermat lately has been reminding me a lot of the intellicup (or whatever it was called) anyways.
EDIT; perhaps.... a PDA system for people selling cars (because I noticed this when I was at a showroom); one that provided information on models in stock, specifications available, prices etc but also an ability to preview various modifications, like correctly rendered metallic paint, or seeing the different upholstery options, etc. That's maybe not multimedia, though.
you could always just rip off those guys who built a motion tracking tripod for their airsoft gun :D
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Good ideas lads, interesting.
aldo, I was the year below you but I had to take time out last semester on medical grounds. No modules this semester for me, just my project in semester B. :)
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You could also try do something with teaching aids. If you want to go interactive and multimedia, you could, if you could be arsed, make a whole load of simulations of chemical, biochemical and physical reactions and stuff, make nice 3d animations, make the atoms moveable with the pointer, allow the user to modify the stuff in the sim, and try to accurately simulate atoms, but include options to make atoms spheres, lettres, or whatever, and colour them not only depening on kind of atom, but also specific atoms so you can easily see where one atom, or molecule goes through the entire reaction.
It'd be one hell of a teaching aid if you made, for instance, an animated drawing of the digestion of proteins. My own biology book fails at that, and I've been redrawing the images, but some of it would be so much clearer if there where animations where people could actually drag the atoms, molecules and enzymes about, mark certain ones with colours, that kind of thing.
Now, a lot of these anims already exist, but if you unified the lot, plus put some effort in working out an intuitive interface, and made the thing interactive enough, this would be very nice indeed.
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Hmm... possible.
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Not saying you HAVE to do it, just offering suggestions. If you think it's rubbish, do say so. It would contain some multi-media, plenty of programming in Java, C or C++, 3D stuff, plus there'd finally be some true use for multimedia with some subjects.
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My biggest problem would be lack of knowledge in the subject area for such an application.
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Originally posted by BlackDove
Hahaha.
What's great about that is that Croatia's schools are actually pretty advanced compared to EU countries' programs, yet it doesn't mean anything at all anywhere. Best you can do with a degree is use it as toilet paper to wipe your ass with.
And now you get to stay there Saturdays for nothing :yes:
which is what the bologna process is trying to change.
in a crappy way, though. backwards way of grading.
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Originally posted by vyper
Good ideas lads, interesting.
aldo, I was the year below you but I had to take time out last semester on medical grounds. No modules this semester for me, just my project in semester B. :)
Ouch. I've had that happen to a mate before; he dropped out for a year midway through the first semester, he'd sustained minor brain damage after being assualted outside a nightclub in Cardiff or something. Nothing that was serious or wouldn't heal, but I think he was still a bit shaken up by the whole thing.
Um... how about the big topic of the last week; evolution. MAybe you could have some form of genetic algorithm to represent mutation & natural selection, and represent it graphically?
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Originally posted by vyper
My biggest problem would be lack of knowledge in the subject area for such an application.
You could perhaps add a bit of interaction with possible users/find a mate doing biochem and in need of a project.