It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
- Charles Dickens, 1859
Our tale starts with an application to UTAS, a number of months ago, to study as a cross-institution student. As a large portion of the administrative staff was on holiday, including a few key players, the approval arrived about a month ago now. It is at this time that I submitted my application to QUT (Queensland University of Technology) for them to complete their part of the paperwork. Well my application sat in a queue for 3 weeks, and I received an offer to study at QUT last friday, the friday before commencing on this monday. Well, It is now Wednesday and my week has been quite busy so far.
Monday found me with three tasks: acquire a student id card, enroll in my units and attend my first lecture.
The first was a simple task. I got my picture taken, was informed that I was not able to receive a student concession go card and received a shiny new student id.
Second. On friday night, when I received my offer to study at QUT, I had encountered an issue when enrolling for my units. The system wouldn’t let me enroll in them as a commonwealth supported student without being listed as a degree student. I was instead listed as cross-institution, undergraduate. This also was simple to remedy. A quick email to the faculty and they would perform a manual enrollment for me. I should have full access to my timetable and online coursework by next week.
Third, I attended my first lecture for the semester. Mobile Devices. As is usual for the first lecture of a semester, the material was a general overview of the unit and of the domain of mobile devices. From a brief history of mobile computing to a look at what the future may bring. Overall the unit is focused on understanding mobile and ubiquitous computing to be able to leverage it for business and personal gain.
Between these tasks I wandered the tents set up by various societies and businesses, collecting a tonne of free stuff and signing up for the school of business group, and information technology group to be able to attend their networking events.
Tuesday.
Only one lecture today, Data Warehousing and Mining.
The primary focus is to gain an understanding of how enterprise wide data warehouses are developed and used, including a practical component of employing SQL Server 2008 to develop a data warehouse.
It was pretty obvious some of the students were having trouble envisioning multi-dimensional data structures, such as hyper cubes. Interesting how a background in sci-fi can aide ones understanding of university course material.
Anyway. I’ll let you all know whats going on as uni continues.
- Clint.
