Sprint 11 Review/Final Exam
I consider the "final exam" containing my presentation and demo of the project plus an oral exam on coursework to be the final sprint review. The committee judging the final exam consisted of my advisor plus another professor from my department (my database professor) and a professor from another department (Accounting and Information Systems; I've been perusing classes in other departments trying to decide what to take next and discovered that she teaches a lot of database-related stuff in BCIS).
The review/exam went well in that I did, in fact, pass. The project presentation and demo could hardly have gone better. I was able to answer questions intelligently and explained all the features, pros, cons, etc. of the project with no problem. Two of my friends who also work in the industry attended (the presentation/demo portion is open to the public) and so I answered questions from 5 people who knew lots about the domain in which I worked. I consider that quite an accomplishment, though admittedly my friend who works in security chose not to be mean and really get into that. ;) My database professor was so impressed with the system that she asked at the end of my presentation when she could start using it. After the exam was over she went to my advisor and asked him to create a login for her so she could start using it right away. If that isn't high praise, I don't know what is. </tooting my own horn>
There were, alas, a few small bugs that cropped up in the demo (some my advisor had found after my last code submission). I'm going to get those fixed this summer, as both my advisor and my database professor want to actively use the system in the fall. Sweet! I may do some other fixes/improvements later, too.
Now, on the other hand.. The oral exam component was pretty horrific. My advisor grilled me on content from Automata, Languages, and Computability, which was the first class I took in Fall 2008. I knew that would be my weak point and I had studied it quite a bit, but it still wasn't enough for the exam to be easy. That part really did not go well. I had to work problems on the board and barely remembered how to do them (and only after some prompting from my advisor, much to my chagrin). My database professor then asked some database-related questions, which went much better ('cause, you know, I actually use knowledge from Databases I & II every single work-day, unlike Automata which has almost never been relevant). My advisor also asked a few questions on scalability/multi-threading relating to my project, which was a bit difficult as I hadn't really considered that (and I've never taken a class relating to that stuff, so...). I think there may have been a question or two on Algorithms, too, which wasn't either awful or good enough for me to remember clearly.
Anyway in the end I prevailed and the committee said I passed, so now that I have recounted this one last time I shall endeavor to forget that the oral exam component ever happened. Overall the review/final exam was a success, I'm now able to see my degree listed on my unofficial transcript (Awarded: Master of Science; Degree Date: May 10, 2013; Major: Computer Science), and my final grade for my final class is in, so I can officially say:
Of course my overall academic journey is far from over; I still have that whole free tuition thing, and there are many things I still want to learn. I've signed up for Intro Psychology in the fall, in order to get the pre-reqs out of the way so I can eventually take Human-Computer Psychology. It'll require another psych class plus a class in stats, but I was thinking stats would be useful anyhow, so that's good. Then there's classes in the CS department like artificial intelligence, networking, parallel programming, etc. not to mention art, Spanish, and about a million other things I want to learn. The university is now my oyster!!!
Now this blog shall have to serve other purposes, namely documenting my assorted academic and non-academic pursuits. Crafts, Sea Monkeys, perhaps even hunting... I generally pursue perfection in everything I do, so the title will still apply. :) But this chapter is OVER!
The review/exam went well in that I did, in fact, pass. The project presentation and demo could hardly have gone better. I was able to answer questions intelligently and explained all the features, pros, cons, etc. of the project with no problem. Two of my friends who also work in the industry attended (the presentation/demo portion is open to the public) and so I answered questions from 5 people who knew lots about the domain in which I worked. I consider that quite an accomplishment, though admittedly my friend who works in security chose not to be mean and really get into that. ;) My database professor was so impressed with the system that she asked at the end of my presentation when she could start using it. After the exam was over she went to my advisor and asked him to create a login for her so she could start using it right away. If that isn't high praise, I don't know what is. </tooting my own horn>
There were, alas, a few small bugs that cropped up in the demo (some my advisor had found after my last code submission). I'm going to get those fixed this summer, as both my advisor and my database professor want to actively use the system in the fall. Sweet! I may do some other fixes/improvements later, too.
Now, on the other hand.. The oral exam component was pretty horrific. My advisor grilled me on content from Automata, Languages, and Computability, which was the first class I took in Fall 2008. I knew that would be my weak point and I had studied it quite a bit, but it still wasn't enough for the exam to be easy. That part really did not go well. I had to work problems on the board and barely remembered how to do them (and only after some prompting from my advisor, much to my chagrin). My database professor then asked some database-related questions, which went much better ('cause, you know, I actually use knowledge from Databases I & II every single work-day, unlike Automata which has almost never been relevant). My advisor also asked a few questions on scalability/multi-threading relating to my project, which was a bit difficult as I hadn't really considered that (and I've never taken a class relating to that stuff, so...). I think there may have been a question or two on Algorithms, too, which wasn't either awful or good enough for me to remember clearly.
Anyway in the end I prevailed and the committee said I passed, so now that I have recounted this one last time I shall endeavor to forget that the oral exam component ever happened. Overall the review/final exam was a success, I'm now able to see my degree listed on my unofficial transcript (Awarded: Master of Science; Degree Date: May 10, 2013; Major: Computer Science), and my final grade for my final class is in, so I can officially say:
I earned a Master of Science in Computer Science from New Mexico State University with a 4.0 GPA.
Phew. It was a long 5-year journey, but it was totally worth it. (And yes, if blink was still supported, I totally would have used it above. ;) )Of course my overall academic journey is far from over; I still have that whole free tuition thing, and there are many things I still want to learn. I've signed up for Intro Psychology in the fall, in order to get the pre-reqs out of the way so I can eventually take Human-Computer Psychology. It'll require another psych class plus a class in stats, but I was thinking stats would be useful anyhow, so that's good. Then there's classes in the CS department like artificial intelligence, networking, parallel programming, etc. not to mention art, Spanish, and about a million other things I want to learn. The university is now my oyster!!!
Now this blog shall have to serve other purposes, namely documenting my assorted academic and non-academic pursuits. Crafts, Sea Monkeys, perhaps even hunting... I generally pursue perfection in everything I do, so the title will still apply. :) But this chapter is OVER!
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