It's been about a month since I came to came to Gothenburg. Time has moved incredibly fast.
So far we've had 2 assignments, and they really haven't been fun, since they've been both difficult and stressful. I'm sure the upcoming assignments will be even worse.
Even so, I've had lots of fun in the Software Engineering and Management program so far. Apart from the assignments, things have gone really well so far, and I've met some really nice people to hang out with.
Right now we are going through one math course and one programming course, and I found out a few days ago that people have been contacting teachers about the math course, saying how sucky it is. People seem to think that it is too difficult, too fast paced, and that mostly because we don't have enough math help sessions. So if you don't know what you're supposed to do in math, and can't find help on the web or from a classmate, you are probably gonna be stressed.
While I do believe we need more math helpsessions, and that a few other things about the course could be improved, I think this it's been fine. It's not bad enough for me to feel the need to complain. Well, at least not yet.
I have enjoyed most of the topics we've covered in math so far, and feel like they will help in the future with programming. I only hope that the next 2 assignments wont be as difficult as the first one...
Anyway, like I said, so far so good at this program, atleast for me.
On to other matters. I ordered a second hand macbook air and it works just fine and I really love it. It's great not to have to bring my 17.3 inch monster laptop to school anymore. At the same time the 12 inch screen of the Air is not too small.
All in all a good buy, even though I am not a mac person!
I wanted to write a blog post to write an update on what I am doing, but really I haven't been doing much. Most days I've been studying from morning til night, and I am not complaining, apart from the assignments it's been fun and I don't mind studying. I actually thought it feel more tedious than it does, so that's good.
Recently I've had atleast a few days where I've felt relaxed enough to do something other than studying. So I've been watching some TV and drawing again. It's been a while. Now I just gotta make time for writing every day, which I haven't really been doing since I got here.
As of now I feel optimistic about passing the first 2 courses, and I hope that I will keep working hard and stay on track!
Sep 17, 2017
Sep 3, 2017
First week at the "Software engineering and management" program in Gothenburg
The first week has gone by and I was kinda surprised to realize that it had only been one week, not longer. Maybe because we've done so many things already, it feels like it should've been longer than a week. So let me tell you a few things about the week.
New program:
This program has existed for several years, but we are the first students that will take this years program, since it has been remade. We wont have all the same courses as students in previous years, and hopefully this remade program will be structured even better than how it was before.
The math:
When I first came here I was a bit worried about how well I was going to do in the math course, and of course since we've so far only covered the very first topic of the math course (which was "Automata"), it's still to early to say if I will fail or succeed in it. But, atleast it started out well.
The school gave us a video to watch about automata (dfa's to be specific), and I didn't understand anything. I tried looking in the book, but still didn't get it. So instead I went to youtube and found a bunch of videos on the topic that explained stuff in a way that I could understand.
So the next day when I came to school I was actually the one helping a fellow student understand some of the concepts, which felt good for someone with such low selfconfidence in their math-skills such as me.
So atleast this week, math has been fine, and it has even been fun! Automata is really interesting.
The programming (Java):
The programming course has also gone fine for me. I am really happy that I at least have some experience with programming in Java. Since I am not sure how well or fast I would be able to grasp some of the concepts if they were explained to me here.
I feel like I am not a very fast learner when it comes to some things, so it has been really good for me to come prepared.
This week in programming we used things like String, int, char, Scanner etc. Basically just very easy programs where the user enters some input and we give back an output.
Next week we will start doing loops and stuff like that.
About the computers:
It's only been a week, but so far I like the school and the campus. The only downside is that we have to bring our own laptops to the lectures and study-sessions. We need them mostly for programming, but also for math since they post exercises online.
So for the past few days I've been breaking my back carrying my 17.3 inch 3+kg asus laptop around, along with other things that we need to bring to school. It's okay, I can manage it of course. But since it is not ideal, and not something I wanna do for the next 3 years, I decided to buy a smaller laptop.
I hope in a few says my second-hand macbook air will be at my door, so I can leave my asus at home. Macbook is new to me, and I don't like the OS that much since I don't really know how to use it. But I think it is quite impossible finding anything slimmer than a macbook air, so it was my number 1 choice!
About the name of the program "Software Engineering and Management":
I chose this program because I want to learn programming, also, the international setting of it really interested me. Meeting people from all over the world, speaking English and all that, is really fun!
But even though I felt like I did a TON of research about the program before choosing it, turns out I did not understand everything about it after all.
Its's called "Software engineering and management", which I thought meant "The engineering and management of software". But no. The "management" part does not stand for the management of software, but for the management of people. They will in this course teach you how to be a manager (basically the person in charge of the team) as well as software developer.
Therefore we will also have many courses that aren't necessarily related to programming. Which is fine by me though, since those courses also sound interesting!
Anyway I am going to wrap it up here since this post is long! Let's hope next week is as good as this one was, and that my second-hand macbook wont be a piece of crap (cuz I can't afford a new laptop)!
New program:
This program has existed for several years, but we are the first students that will take this years program, since it has been remade. We wont have all the same courses as students in previous years, and hopefully this remade program will be structured even better than how it was before.
The math:
When I first came here I was a bit worried about how well I was going to do in the math course, and of course since we've so far only covered the very first topic of the math course (which was "Automata"), it's still to early to say if I will fail or succeed in it. But, atleast it started out well.
The school gave us a video to watch about automata (dfa's to be specific), and I didn't understand anything. I tried looking in the book, but still didn't get it. So instead I went to youtube and found a bunch of videos on the topic that explained stuff in a way that I could understand.
So the next day when I came to school I was actually the one helping a fellow student understand some of the concepts, which felt good for someone with such low selfconfidence in their math-skills such as me.
So atleast this week, math has been fine, and it has even been fun! Automata is really interesting.
The programming (Java):
The programming course has also gone fine for me. I am really happy that I at least have some experience with programming in Java. Since I am not sure how well or fast I would be able to grasp some of the concepts if they were explained to me here.
I feel like I am not a very fast learner when it comes to some things, so it has been really good for me to come prepared.
This week in programming we used things like String, int, char, Scanner etc. Basically just very easy programs where the user enters some input and we give back an output.
Next week we will start doing loops and stuff like that.
About the computers:
It's only been a week, but so far I like the school and the campus. The only downside is that we have to bring our own laptops to the lectures and study-sessions. We need them mostly for programming, but also for math since they post exercises online.
So for the past few days I've been breaking my back carrying my 17.3 inch 3+kg asus laptop around, along with other things that we need to bring to school. It's okay, I can manage it of course. But since it is not ideal, and not something I wanna do for the next 3 years, I decided to buy a smaller laptop.
I hope in a few says my second-hand macbook air will be at my door, so I can leave my asus at home. Macbook is new to me, and I don't like the OS that much since I don't really know how to use it. But I think it is quite impossible finding anything slimmer than a macbook air, so it was my number 1 choice!
About the name of the program "Software Engineering and Management":
I chose this program because I want to learn programming, also, the international setting of it really interested me. Meeting people from all over the world, speaking English and all that, is really fun!
But even though I felt like I did a TON of research about the program before choosing it, turns out I did not understand everything about it after all.
Its's called "Software engineering and management", which I thought meant "The engineering and management of software". But no. The "management" part does not stand for the management of software, but for the management of people. They will in this course teach you how to be a manager (basically the person in charge of the team) as well as software developer.
Therefore we will also have many courses that aren't necessarily related to programming. Which is fine by me though, since those courses also sound interesting!
Anyway I am going to wrap it up here since this post is long! Let's hope next week is as good as this one was, and that my second-hand macbook wont be a piece of crap (cuz I can't afford a new laptop)!
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