Final Reflective Blog

What were your key objectives for completing the URSS and have they been met?

Complete and total subjugation of the atomic world hasn't been achieved. Yet. I may have been overly ambitious in that regard.

I did fufill my objective of being able to improve my computing skills, and experiencing a real research environment however.

What skills have you gained by completing the URSS project that you will utilise in your studies or other aspects of your working life?

Largely the ability to navigate linux and put together some rudimentary code to serve a purpose.

That and lying on blogs.

What will you do differently as a result of your URSS experience?

Everything! The URSS experience has changed my life in a fundamental and irreversible way! From this day forward I will walk with a spring in my step and a whistle on my lips! What a world we live in, full of wonderment and transcendental joy! I will live each day to the full and strive to reach my full potential- ascending into the firmament as a being of pure energy and love, all because of my URSS experience!

Have there been any unexpected outcomes of taking part in the URSS?

Apart from a change in personality comparable in magnitude to a traumatic head injury?

No.

What would you consider as your highlights of the URSS process?

Making something work. It's like magic when you told a computer to do exactly what you thought you wanted to do.

The physics seminars held for and by the summer students every wednesday evening were pretty rad too.

Did you encounter any challenges, issues or difficulties whilst partaking in the URSS? How did you overcome them?

Too many to list. Normally "overcoming" meant asking if there was some abstruse command I could use to make the computer do what I wanted. There almost always was one.

The biggest challenge by far was summoning up the will to actually complete these blogs. I overcame this by being as honest (read: unhelpful) as possible in my answers.

How do you feel about the URSS now that you have completed your project?

It's great to be able to do the research, but blogging responses to banal questions and box ticking objectives only serves to diminish the experience. I understand the need to have some evidence that people didn't just spend ten weeks K-holing in a squat, but I could really have done without these nannying, time-wasting blogs. I enjoyed making the poster though? Does that count?

So, summing up- it's a great scheme that's tarnished slightly by endless admin.

: 19 Oct 2012 12:41 |  Tags: David Beck Final Reflection Urss |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem