I've got a feeling...

...that this week's gonna be a good week!

I don't have anything due this week except a maths assignment I'm nearly finished, PLUS there's the Ekka holiday on Wednesday, so I figure this is a great chance to

1. get ahead on my uni work
2. finalise my vac work applications, since a lot of places I'm interested in are closing end of this month
3. find some subjects to do on exchange!

I have to formally apply by the 31st of October to go on exchange next year in semester 2.  It feels so weird having daydreamed about it for years, and now having to actually set the plans in motion!  I had a chat to my academic advisor about it the other day* and I'm now at the stage of having to choose subjects to get approved by the faculty.  I'll need to start brushing up on my German so I can navigate the uni websites :)

*something I had been meaning to do for some time, but somehow never got around to actually doing.  But it was excellent.  Uni people are not out to get you, they are quite happy to let you take the most reasonable option - I had some tricky courses to work out because of how my double degree is affected by the recent course restructure but I'm really impressed with how reasonable everyone was.  I was expecting a whole lot of bureaucracy and red tape and people demanding that I follow the rules to the letter, to the extent that I was panicking that I'd have to add an extra year to my degree!  Of course that wasn't even close to the case, so three cheers for academic advisors :)

Calcumalations

"I just need 70% to pass." (alt: I just need 102% to pass)

"If I can somehow get 95% on the final I'll get a 7... so what's a pointer again?"

"Why am I wasting time on this 1% question when I could be studying for the final?"

So I've done some calculations to mentally prepare myself for the upcoming semester, and they basically reinforce the lesson I learned at the end of my first semester at uni.  And relearned every semester since:

The more marks you get during semester, the fewer marks you need on the final.

I've got a spreadsheet which I've modified from previous semesters, which basically lists all my assessment pieces and their weightings for each subject, and as I get marks back I enter them into the spreadsheet and it tells me numbers like how much I need on the final to get a 7, say, or how many marks I've accumulated compared to how many marks I could have got so far.  And generally what happens is as the semester progresses I watch the marks slip away and wish I'd paid more attention to those darn one-percenters!

So this semester I decided to try out some numbers before I got the marks back, just to get an intuitive feel for how much each assignment I miss/mess up will affect my final mark.  The results:

If I get 100% in every pre-exam assessment, I'll need the following percentages on the exam to get a 7:

79%, 63%, 67%, 70%.

If I get 80%:
87%, 93%, 91%, 90%

I get some surprising results sometimes.  For example, that second subject has a lot of small assessments and a fairly small (40%) final exam.  If I get 75% across all those small assignments, I need a perfect final for a 7; if I only aim for a 6 I just need 75% (obviously).  When I go into finals, my thinking process goes something like "there's only 10% difference between a 6 and a 7 so I'll just need 85% or so, maybe a bit extra to make up for those assignments I missed but I'll be right".  Which is totally wrong!

Anyway, imagining an exam block where I only need 63% to get a high distinction has inspired me to study extra hard on those insignificant assignments!  I just spent the better part of today finishing off two such assignments (and just in case anyone else spends three hours and five A4 pages searching for the reason her final answer is out by 3.07... THE MOMENT OF INERTIA OF A SLENDER ROD ROTATING ABOUT ITS CENTRE OF MASS IS DIFFERENT TO THAT OF ONE ROTATING ABOUT ONE END) and I'm pleased to say that possibly for the first time in my life I've handed in an assignment before the day it was due.

Of course, I'm probably going to remember an error in my working in the middle of the night and kick myself for handing it in too soon.  Maybe next time I'll just smile to myself in satisfaction and hand it in on the proper day :)

Road Trip!

Yes, that's me! Lord (lady?) of all I survey...

Okay, I'm not quite there yet, but one day I will be.  For now I have to start at the beginning - an emergency trip to Lowes for that stylish blue work shirt you see in the picture there.  This was for a QRC student ambassador trip to two sites in the Darling Downs - Peabody Energy's Wilkie Creek coal mine and Origin Energy's Darling Downs power station.  And since safety comes first in this industry, before we even left Brisbane I needed a collared shirt with long sleeves, which for some reason I've never owned before.  I've also been meaning to get myself my own pair of safety boots, but for this trip I settled for borrowing a pair at each site.  Trying to work out the differences between men's and women's sizing flustered me quite a bit at first!

Okay, onto the less trivial parts of the trip...

Wilkie Creek's General Manager, Blair Jackson, was our very informative guide for the first session of the day.  He and the rest of the staff we spoke to really impressed me with their commitment to safety, community relations and the environment and mine rehabilitation.  Wilkie Creek actually grew a 5-acre crop of sorghum on previously-mined land last summer, as a demonstration of what can be done if you're really committed to rehabilitation.

Blair also spoke about the importance of not being one-dimensional when it comes to the environment.  It's not just about planting a few trees and thinking you've done your bit.  Restoring the land to its natural conditions - whether that's trees, bushes, grassland or something else - is more important, and he really surprised me with how much time and thought he had given to this process.

Now it's all very well and good talking about this sort of stuff, but it's something quite different when you're actually there and see the processes happening for yourself.  You've got active mining happening in one area, a processing plant with huge piles of coal ready to be sent out, unmined land, rehabilitated land... it's quite amazing thinking about how the stages all relate to each other, and even just getting it straight in your mind that they're all stages in the same process!

And speaking of huge...
The scale of this has to be seen to be appreciated.  This was the first time I'd ever been to a mine site before, so even Wilkie Creek (not a large mine, in the grand scheme of things) impressed me.  You can look at pictures all you want but there's something about standing at the edge of a viewing platform and seeing the huge stretches of coal before you.  It's like watching a model train set - very much so, actually, because the tiny/huge (depending on your perspective!) trucks appear like clockwork and disappear again behind piles of rocks.  It was interesting trying to identify all the different types of machinery on the site - putting a... face? to the list of equipment names from MINE2105 last semester...

drillin's facebook page has some more pictures here, from both sites.

The Origin visit was a bit more brief, but it was still enough for a very informative tour of the power station itself, as well as a bit of a briefing on the operation of the plant.  I don't study electrical engineering, but our guide aimed his talk really well and I was able to get a really good overview of not only how the power station operated, but also where it fit in on the energy supply track - from CSG fields in SW Qld to the light switches in someone's house.  Brought back memories of high school physics lessons - with a slight seasoning of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory :)

And finally - home.  But not before a surprisingly interesting drive back from the Darling Downs to Brisbane.  I'm not normally one for staring out the window watching trees go by, but on this particular trip it was absolutely fascinating watching the transition from out in the bush in the middle of nowhere, to regional towns like Dalby, to farms, to forests and mountains, to Toowoomba, to darkening highway, and finally to the bright lights of the city at night as we pulled into Brisbane.  Just makes you realise how much variety there actually is in Australia, if that was just a couple hours' drive from here to Dalby!

So thanks Joanna and QRC for organising that trip - it was a great day out and I really enjoyed it.  And I think I looked great in my Lowes shirt :)

Feeling on top of things...

...for once! Had a pretty rollercoaster couple of weeks, assessment wise - in addition to the usual collection of weekly assignments and worksheets I had a big assignment each for MINE2105 and COMP2303, both due on the same day. 

THEN
I really mismanaged my time with them, so in the week leading up to it I was frantically trying to do both at once (which usually resulted in me freaking out and deciding to just take the night off to de-stress).  I was extremely lucky in that, through technical problems (I assume - I didn't question too closely!) we got extensions, and I eventually managed to hand in pretty good assignments.

But I don't want to rely on luck in the future.

COMP2303: I'd done about 80% of the assignment easily, soon after we got it, so I put it off thinking "oh the rest of it's just ironing out some bugs, adding in a couple of features, cleaning up my style, it'll be easy".  Problem: overconfidence

MINE2105: I'd done about 20% of the assignment, the really easy parts like drawing up the title page and bibliography... and had no idea where to even start.  Well, that's a lie - I knew what to do, and I'd done a fair bit of it, but I had no idea what level of info we had to provide, and whether I was even close to what I was supposed to do.  Problem: skipping pracs and not asking for help

So if anyone's reading this - don't skip pracs when you don't know what you're doing, and don't get overconfident!

NOW
Back up to speed, although I fear I'm getting a little overconfident again with COMP2303 assignment 2.  I absolutely love this subject again.  When we first got the assignment I spent about 5 minutes playing around with it and freaked out, thinking it was impossible.  Spent just yesterday afternoon on it and I've already solved half of it!  Mustn't forget about part 2 though...

Anyway though, while I was busy being scared and putting off assignment 2, I've been working busily on all my little assignments, so I'm fully up to date on MATH1061 assignments, and I'm feeling pretty confident for the ENGG1010 statics exam (which is still a month away...).  Yay for productive procrastination!

So I'm pretty happy with where I am now.  Which is good, because I have a pretty busy weekend socially (including our Robogals minion-training day!) so not having to worry about COMP2303 will take a load off my mind.

Of Academic Advisors and Cupcakes

I recently found out that someone I know will be reading this, which gives me a bit of a strange feeling - no longer am I simply pouring my heart out anonymously!

Anyway, this post is going to be about academic advisors at uni.  I had a chat the other day with another friend (second year electrical) who had just been to see an academic advisor to plan out the subjects she'd be taking over the course of her degree.  It's a fairly complex art...

I didn't go to an advisor at the start of first year, because I already knew what subjects I was going to take.  And looking back, they weren't bad subjects to choose.  I mean, I wish I hadn't done PHYS1001 & 2, because now I've decided to major in computer science, and I still have to do MATE1000 and ENGG1010 (which I'm taking this semester).  But if I hadn't done physics, I wouldn't have known I absolutely can't stand physics, would I?


But now I'm having a little trouble sorting out my subjects by myself, and I've been thinking of going in to see someone at uni.  I've had a draft plan for a long time, since before I started uni (yeah I'm keen, shut up), but this semester I realised things don't always go according to plan.  Take METR2800, for example.  On paper, it would have worked out perfectly to do it this semester.  But for various reasons, I didn't.  And now I've messed up my entire plan and I can either struggle through alone or...

Seek professional help!  And there are a few major reasons I really want to take this option:
1) I want to go on exchange next year, second semester;
2) I'm doing a dual degree, which means I have a weird course plan anyway, plus two final year projects; and
3) I've been putting off mech subjects until I've done ENGG1010, and now I'm not sure how I'm going to fit them all in!

It's not as easy choosing subjects as it is in high school.  Back then you just picked your favourite subjects from a list and bam! you were set for two years.  Uni requires juggling prereqs, and not having too many project courses at once, and subjects only taught every second year in the summer semester if the first day of June was a Tuesday...


Also, we had our Robogals cupcake stall, and made twice as much money as we were expecting.  Which is all I'm going to say about it, but that's awesome!

Semester the third

Pretty excited for uni tomorrow.  I don't actually have class tomorrow (normally I'd have a mining prac but they're not on in first week) but I'm going in anyway just to catch up with some friends and have lunch with a couple of people.  My sister was absolutely appalled that I'd go to uni when I don't have to - hey, I'm allowed to be keen if I want to!  I've got a couple of admin things I want to do at uni and in the city so I'll get that sorted tomorrow as well, before semester gets started.

I'm not sure what to think of my subjects this semester.  Only one of them is one I chose deliberately - the rest I had to do for one reason or another:

• MINE2105 - intro to mining, basically an overview of the mining industry in Australia, introduction to some software, mining practices, stuff like that.  If I'm to have any chance of not sounding like an idiot when I do vac work applications this year I need to do this course this year, and it's only offered in semester 1, so I decided on this one early on
• COMP2303 - networking and operating systems, the only one I chose deliberately.  Well, I wanted to choose one 'computer' subject, so basically I was tossing up between CSSE2000, CSSE2002 and this.  Operating systems is one of the areas of IT that I actually enjoy in my spare time, so it was a fairly easy decision
• ENGG1010 - applied mechanics, a first year course I was supposed to do last year but did PHYS1001 (thought I was going to major in physics) instead.  Need to get this under my belt before I can do pretty much any of the mechanical subjects in my degree
• MATH1061 - was tossing up between METR2800, which I really wanted to do because I actually kinda like team projects, and this one.  Ultimately I wasn't really sure if I wanted to take METR2800 without the recommended ENGG1010 - might have done it if it hadn't been a team project, wouldn't want to let the team down.  Apparently an easy elective

Getting involved in campus culture this semester too - wrote a whole bunch about my involvement with Robogals UQ, a club that aims to get more girls into science/engineering by running robotics programs in schools, but it was so long it deserved its own post (http://kimberley-drillin.blogspot.com/2011/02/robogals.html).

QRC is also kicking off with a... well, maybe not bang, but a welcome luncheon nonetheless.  On Tuesday a couple of us scholarship students ran a small stall in Hawken as part of a mini-careers showcase for first year students.  Had some conversations with a few students, but mostly they seemed more interested in promotional swag from the companies there (I got a free bottle of sunscreen on a keyring from Rio Tinto!).  More interesting were the conversations I had with the other scholarship students about vac work.  It made me a lot more confident in applying - I considered it last year, but I just didn't think I would be useful to anyone!  I was probably right, I guess, but I'm sure I would have found something to do...

These holidays have stretched out awfully long, though, so I've made it my goal to get vac work this year (or at the very least, make a genuine effort in applying - if nothing else for practice for when I really need it).  I'm going to go to every networking event, luncheon and conference I'm invited to - I'm no longer an awkward first year with no idea about mining whatsoever, I'm a confident young woman with definite career goals!  I want to go into vac work (and later on hopefully a career) with my eyes wide open, understanding as much as possible what I'm getting myself into.  Being too scared to even go to lunches is not the way to go about that.

So, without any further ado, let my third university semester begin!

Robogals!

So, as promised, my Robogals-specific post!

Been promoted from minion to executive committee member of Robogals UQ, a relatively new club that aims to get more girls into science/engineering by bringing robotics programs to schools.  It also runs robotics workshops at UQ itself during the holidays.  It's a global organisation but the UQ branch has a lot of autonomy, so we're looking into making it more of a social group/general purpose robotics club, in addition to the school-based work - we're having a meeting in week 1 to see what people are interested in before we decide exactly where we want to go.  I'm the schools manager, in charge of coordinating school visits, liaising with teachers and parents, that sort of thing.

Working at a stall at O-Week was interesting : ) We had a pretty cool stall, with a humanoid robot, one of those Parrot drones (you know, the quadricopters - I told a bunch of people about the Kinect-controlled one at LCA - responses ranged from awe to skepticism about controlling it without physical feedback), and of course the Lego NXTs we use for school visits.  It was interesting seeing the range of reactions people had.  We noticed that a lot of people seemed way more fascinated by the NXTs, which were just doing really basic line-following, than the humanoid, which was doing a pretty complicated dance routine.  A lot of people said stuff along the lines of "that looks really cool, but it's best admired from a distance..."

Anyway, if anyone's actually reading this, Robogals is looking for all sorts of members, not limited to mechatronics students - education (you do get to work directly with teachers, and maybe design lesson plans!), general stuff like journalism, arts, business (all sorts of marketing, sponsorship, publicity stuff), anyone just interested in robotics.  And despite the name it's certainly not just for girls - over half our members are guys.  You're happy wearing a dress to all Robogals events, aren't you?

http://brisbane.robogals.org.au/contact - linky!