MSc worries

[lnr]

In need of inspiration. Trying to get my arse in gear wrt MSc, but still have not the foggiest what I want to do. Mail project co-ordinator and ask if it's possible to have some examples, to give me a clue what to do. They ask what area I'm looking to work in, I say I don't know yet and was hoping examples would inspire me, response: "We expect students to meet us halfway: please define a subject area and we can move forward". Thankyou *so* much. That really really helps.

And they seem happy to ignore the fact they've been completely forgetting I exist. I only officially deferred my course until the beginning of February and no-one has contacted me since then. And they haven't answered my other question, which was to ask if it's possible to defer any further or if September is my last possible deadline to get this degree.

I don't know if I can do this right now, but I feel like I have to.

Update: Phew. Apparently they were assuming since I didn't contact them in Feb that I wanted to continue intermitting. Dunno why they didn't *ask* but there we go. I can apparently re-register in September and start a project then, hand in in March and graduate next year. It makes it an awfully long way off before I actually get a degree, but at least I would get one, which I might not if I tried to struggle my way on at the moment. I'm not going to just let myself forget about it completely until then though. I've asked again if they can just manage a list of past project titles, so we'll see what goes from there. Thanks for the support guys.

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Is it worth looking at similar courses on the web, which might give examples of stuff people have done? (Just thinking that when I was looking at Linguistics MPhils lots of the websites gave examples of research projects people had done.) And of course there are so many people round here who've done CompSci, surely some of them can suggest something?

Afraid I can't really offer any other practical suggestions as I have no idea what kind of thing it would involve. But I really do hope you can get something together, I know you can do it & it would be a real shame not to finish it now. *hugs*

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

What's the scope of the project?

Stuff I'd be interested in doing:

Clustered systems - http://openssi.org/ is an umbrella project, with several open tasks on the front page. “SSI Clusters over VMware” sounds fun in a very twisted way. “ Adapt killer apps” is an open-ended task, porting an MTA or news server to a Single System Image cluster could be good?

Databases - I'd like to see a standard database infrastructure on Linux systems. Currently every mail, news, package manager, system log files, and dozens of other components are all using ad-hoc schemes to attempt to write reliable consistent structured data. This is a solved problem, it's the infrastructure that's missing. IMAO there should be a standard well defined interface for such.

Linux system reporting is quite poor in a lot of ways; I'd like better system performance reporting tools on Linux. Solaris sar, iostat, mpstat &co is a place to see what should be done.

Other than systems-level geekery, I think the Computer Programming for Everybody (http://www.python.org/sigs/edu-sig/) type projects are interesting. Being able to just type a few commands and easily make colourful stuff appear on screen and move around, allowing simple games to be written, is what got me into programming as a kid.

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

What j4 said - have a scout around the interweb and see if you can find inspiration. I find that when I wander about looking for MA courses that seem fun I usually end up with a list an arm long and cannot choose.

What is it exactly? A project/dissertation to finish your degree?

project suggestions

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

Here, MSc project reports end up in the library for anyone to look at. Might be worth checking if that happens there too.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

That reminds me, if I don't go back to mine this September I have to wait until 2005 or change my Special Subject for Yr 2, since the one I've already done half of only runs in alternate years. The thesis is mostly written, but I won't get the MA without the second Special Subject. Bah.