Exams? Done!

It’s been quite a while since my last post. I’ve been busy. Not a good excuse, but it’s all I’ve got. I had 2 exams left at the end of September and I’m glad to say their finally behind me. It’s quite an achievement for me and it’s implications are only now beginning to dawn on me.

No more exams.

It’s a mind boggling thought. I can not believe that from now on I can actually learn what I want to. Don’t get me wrong. I definitely picked the right school to go to and the courses themselves or rather the ideas for them were mostly OK. The problems lay in the execution of these courses. Some went too deep yet others went to wide. Professors didn’t seem to get were the sweet spot is. The worst thing about it was, that they didn’t seem to try or even care and find it. This left us students frustrated which is not a way to go if you want to motivate young minds. I must admit that these last 2 exams took everything I’ve got to get through. But I did it and I’m really proud of myself.

So what does this mean? It means I’ve only got one thing left to reach the end of the path that is formal education - diploma. On Friday I’m going to hand in all the forms and papers to make it formal. If you’re interested my thesis is going to be about recommender systems. I’m still waiting on a formal title, but that’s my mentor’s job. I’m actually really looking forward to getting to work. Should be fun.

Just to keep this a wholesome post let add that this is the only part (finish school) of my New Year’s resolution I’ve been working on. With exams behind me it now makes it a lot easier to focus on other goals. My parents were kind enough to help me through the past few months financially, but getting a job is now quite high on my priority list. I’ll also start working out as it started to warm up outside. Socializing is probably the last on my list, but I’ve got to make sacrifices somewhere, don’t I?