Welcome to Cheylea's Masters 'Blog'.
This is my email entry on my Master's course. I will endeavour to write something fairly regularly - even if it is a little short. The goal is to keep thoughts organised and keep a nice record of everything that happens in real-time. Perhaps in the future, this will be useful for prospective students. Or something.
I'll also include topics of interest that are reasonably accessible as I come across them. This email though is mostly a set up and introduction vibe, but I'm hoping once my work really kicks in I'll also be able to share some really interesting things.
What are we doing here?
So I am studying, well, Computer Science. For those who don't really know what this is, I like to think of it as the theory (and practice) of how we tell computers to do things. It's very mathematical, so links to my undergraduate degree but also very technical - which has somehow become my career speciality. I've decided to study for a masters degree for a few reasons.
- I have always wanted to do one, and nearly have around three times.
- I reached a stopping point in my career and thought really deeply about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to move forward.
- I hope to formalise my knowledge and make use of improved and added skills.
- I want to learn about Artificial Intelligence, as it becomes more and more predominant in our lives - I want to be part of the movement that ensures we use it ethically.
- To meet more people like me.
I must say I was quite excited leading up to the induction. I got so close to ordering a Liverpool Hoodie - but I thought maybe I should start the course first - it might turn out to be awful!
A course without exams?
It has been a bit of an adjustment getting back into studying (it has been four years now!), but Liverpool have actually set things up really well to get you back into the swing.
One of the first things I did when I had access to the online learning platform is to figure out what assignments we would be assessed on, as the course is entirely exam free. When I attained access to the course materials I was surprised to see how much of our degree would be assessed on discussion posts and group work. I promptly added everything to my Notion (my workspace where I store all my notes, journal entries and more) to get everything tracked and managed to put together this breakdown:
26.67% - Discussion Questions (standard modules)
17.5% - Programming (standard modules)
15% - Group Work (standard modules)
5% - Essay (standard modules)
2.5% - Other (standard modules)
16.67% - Project: Dissertation
6.67% - Project: Artefact (software)
10% - Project: Other
This means that overall for the entire degree, the type of work that contributes to my grade is broken down as follows:
31.67% - Essay
26.67% - Discussion Questions
24.17% - Programming
15% - Group Work
12.5% - Other
It is quite surprising that over a quarter of my degree will be assessed on participation in forum discussions. The rough format is: a question will be proposed on the module topic, then we write a 500-word response, then we reply to someone else with 500 words. Then we write a review and reflect on the work. It sounds straightforward enough - but there is a certain amount of intimidation from it. Work must be formal, proofed and ultimately it will be assessed. For induction, we had three topics to practise using the forum: introduce yourself, academic integrity and transitioning from undergraduate to postgraduate. These are not counted towards our grades, and so the expectation is that they will give us early feedback and we can make changes for the real thing.
Introduce yourself...
As I had gone into this course assuming I would need to make my own attempts at peer interaction, I was surprised to find this would effectively be built in. However, I had been excited at the thought of meeting like-minded people so this kind of works out. And so, not to be deterred, I tried to get stuck in as soon as possible and write my introductory post.
This unfortunately took me a long time. Writing anything 'public' always causes me to spend a lot of time carefully crafting how I expect to be perceived and ensuring I include everything I want to say without going off on a ramble. It took me a long time and I started to have fears and doubts that I wouldn't be able to handle the discussion questions in the forums. I am an expert on myself and it's taken me so long how can I expect to do it for more complex questions I know less about?
In the end, I posted this:
Hi, my name is Cheylea, and I am based in Bournemouth, England. I am currently a Business Analyst for Southampton City Council, working on a data migration project for the social care team since March 2021. I have taken on many roles throughout my career, including Head of Technology and Project Manager, but most of my experience has been as a Data Analyst in FinTech start-ups, working with colleagues based all over the world.
I would describe myself as a very data-driven person. I have a lot of experience querying SQL databases, performing analysis via Excel and reporting with Power BI. I have also taught myself enough R and Python to get me through past data analysis projects and I sometimes use Python to solve puzzles on CodinGame – but there is still a lot for me to learn!
I have led quite a few interesting projects touching on topics like credit risk analysis, fuzzy matching logic, data migration, process redesign and more. Originally, I studied Mathematics at university, but having been exposed to software development throughout my career, I have developed a passion for Computer Science and solving problems using algorithms, machine learning and other techniques. I especially enjoy exploring how the two subjects link together.
Through this course, I am eager to formalise my knowledge and further my experience on topics I have touched on in the past - as most of my skills are self-taught.
In my spare time, I work on personal project ideas, play tennis (badly), and I am a musician. I also have a habit of cycling through crafts (currently I'm on cross stitch!).
I can't wait to get to know everyone!
I am pleased to report though that this question turned out to take the longest out of all the others. I managed to craft posts and responses to the more academic topics a lot more easily and I quickly became comfortable putting myself out there more. Meaning many of my fears are already allayed.
Wrapping up
So far not many people have completed a lot of the induction work (as it doesn't count towards the grades) so I'll be curious to see how things evolve. We had quite a few other activities, such as quizzes and learning how to use things like the online library etc. But another part of the induction was watching a few TEDTalks on AI, I thought I would share my favourite ones here.
https://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_gordon_how_ai_can_help_shatter_barriers_to_equality/
https://www.ted.com/talks/refik_anadol_art_in_the_age_of_machine_intelligence
https://www.ted.com/talks/radhika_nagpal_what_intelligent_machines_can_learn_from_a_school_of_fish
Overall my induction will last two weeks, so I still have another week to go. Next week will involve writing my first ever academic essay and having my first tussle with referencing and plagiarism. Stay Tuned!
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