My Placement Year - Anthony Chellew's Online Portfolio

Saturday, 21 June 2008 16:29

My placement year is drawing to a close. As a part of my final tutor visit, I've been asked to think about think about my achievements over the year.

Knowledge and Skills

Business

I've learned a lot about business. The good and the bad, there is certainly some bad.

A few of my least favourite business phrases:
"Take things forward" - Relating to a project or product basically translates to do nothing useful in the future.
"Touch base offline" - Normally heard in a telecon or team meeting when something can be dealt with one to one.

Programming

Object oriented programming - Abstraction, Encapsulation, Polymorphism, Inheritance, I now understand these princples far greater than I did before.

Design Patterns - Something clearly missed off every module, or course I've previously done but a hugely important princple that I'm glad to be at least aware of the 40 odd patterns that exist.

Java - Having worked on a real project I have much more confidence in my own ability, the largest project I worked on before was the 40 class, second year project. This year I've worked on one comprising of 3000-5000 classes. I also now have an understanding of Generics which along with Design Patterns will certainly make my final year project better.

C# despite a Microsoft Technology its a nice thing to add to my CV, it was similar enough to Java.

Personal

Escape

In order to forfil my objective for a good job in I.T. I've always known I'd have to get away from Cornwall. My placement year and finding a job in the South East gave me this opportunity.

I took a gamble on my accomodation, using the very helpful FlatmateClick.co.uk I found a house in Fleet. Despite having seen no more than 6 photos of the house and never met the landlord or other housemate I paid the first months rent and moved up here.

I know have a new base here in Fleet, with many new people I have met. Many people I will miss when I leave but I hope to be back soon.

Flying

Before this year I'd never been on an aeroplane or outside of the UK. Which to many people came as a bit of a shock.
I got the opportunity to go to the U.S. whilst working on a project before Christmas. We went to Valley Forge, PA. As the whole flying experience was completely new to me I wasn't sure how I was going to cope with my first flight gladly I experienced no air sickness or nerves really at all. The whole trip was great, if a little cold with snow most days we were out in the States.