"The best way to predict the future is to implement it."

Friday was the Final Day. We all went to DCU to demo our projects, and five of us were chosen to present to everyone (even the dean of Engineering in DCU and Prof. Barry Smyth's friend were floating around. Eeek!), I'm suprised and thankful to have been one of them. I was super impressed by the ones with professionally printed posters, but in the end a few people found the ghettoness simplicity of mine appealing. All of the people I heard presented so well, and Dr. Muntean's speeches were very inspiring.

It's only been 2 days and I already miss everyone based with me in the fourth-year lab! I'm so glad to have been part of the 2010 programme, and a little sorry that I didn't get to know more people (especially the international interns) better.

I did many things for the first time, such as:

- Visited the Guinness Storehouse and discovered that I really hate "the black stuff".
- Signed non-disclosure and IP forms.
- Relied on my own abilities and pushed myself to grow where they were insufficient, given the lack of demonstrators - usually I whine to the poor demonstrators in labs whenever I get stuck with an assignment. No more!
- AoE II: The Conquerors LAN parties!!
- Gave a presentation (twice) on my own, which was good practice for fourth year. No more relying on project team members!
- Wrote a research paper. I like writing so it wasn't too hard, but it's always good to get some practice and become familiar with the format of academic papers (as opposed to reports and essays).
- Visited Microsoft Ireland and learned about programming techniques from Amazon speakers. It's always interesting to interact with people who are already in the industry.
- Visited Leinster House and was oddly impressed with the interior.
- Met so many smart people and fellow interns who are truly passionate about computer science.
- Had the kindest and most enthusiastic supervisor and was given the chance to work with Twittomender, an upcoming friend recommender system.


All of the interns minus Emma and Victor, organisers minus Dr. Nicola Stokes and some supervisors. Click on the photo for a link to my public Facebook album for that day.

I was introduced to Weedle is a careers-/skills-oriented site which can improve your ranking on search engines. Everyone join!!


Finally, I can't decide whether or not to keep this blog open to talk about compsci-related things, or stop posting and keep it as a time capsule (does that make sense with a blog?). I miss ODCSSS already...thanks to everyone who made it possible and enabled me to learn so much!


Subject title quote by David Heinemeier Hansson.