Results!

While I was away in South America I got my results. Honestly, I was fairly sure I’d got a first. Whilst I was with my tour group someone asked what I was expecting to get and I said “at least a first”, so he laughed and told his friend what I’d said. Honestly, I was hoping to hit a specific percent hence I said that.

Anyhow, very pleased to say I got my first. I’m a bit disappointed that I pretty much dive-bombed both the exams in that term. I’m not sure how that happened, but the last term of uni was always going to be a stressful time and I guess I just didn’t know the material or answer questions in the right way.

A difference this year has been I’ve found it difficult to integrate back into third year, with a lot of my friends having moved on or gone into fourth year, and that’s tough. A big part of the first two years was being able to talk through issues with people working on the same stuff, so I attribute part of my lower grades to feeling isolated and that’s kinda sucky.

What I’m trying to force myself to not do is dwell on it. Even if I didn’t get the mark I wanted, I got a first and most people would be happy with that. Heck, A-Level studying Charlotte is looking at me right now thinking “what the hell, dude, quit moaning” because at that point I was happy with getting a high grade and sod the excess. Funny how much you notice you’ve changed.

On top of that first, I got a pretty good grade on my final year project which is the part I was (and still am) most passionate about. In total I got 93%, which breaks down to 68% in my first report (worth 3%), 75% in my second (worth 7%), and a whopping 95% in my final report (worth the remaining 90%). I’m incredibly pleased and proud of what I accomplished there and I can’t wait to open source what I have once a few bugs are fixed and sections are tidied and improved. My target is to have it ready for public viewing by the end of the year, and as I don’t have an awful lot to do over the summer I’ll probably spend a fair amount of time on it during this period.

A big thank you to the people who reviewed my report - that is, obviously my supervisor Helen who’s been brilliant throughout the year, David Jones, David Whale, Zach Zebrowski, my own mum and dad, probably a couple of others I’ve forgotten. I really think that’s what gave me a boost in terms of grades, and spending the last 24 hours putting in all of your changes was well worth the effort, so thank you so much for taking the time to read and give honest feedback.