Year 1

Semester 1

MATH0015: Programming
Lecturer: Dr Julian Padget
Tutor: Nam Hur
Padget wrote the lecture notes on OHP slides rather than the blackboard. He originally used a green pen, but after some students complained that it was hard to read he threw it away and used a blue pen instead. In the same wave he made the Wednesday lectures into revision lectures. In fact, Petra Whittenham has even written an Ode to Scheme.
Exam result: 78% (despite going into SAD the night before the exam!)

MATH0016: Information Management 1
Lecturer: Dr Dan Richardson
This was a farce! There was one lecture a week, but no exam at the end - it was assessed purely by coursework. The first assignment was an essay. Information management is not meant to be about writing essays! The essay was a piece of scientific journalism. There was also some Excel coursework and some assessed groupwork - I was in the same group as John Pauley, John Collomosse, Dave Barker and Dafydd "Biff" Biffen, who on the first lab session I sat near - that is how the group formed.
Exam result: 72% (even though there wasn't an exam!)

MATH0017: Principles of Computer Operation and Architecture
Lecturer: Dr Michael Brooke
Tutor: Adam Batenin
A lecture on Thursday morning and another on Thursday afternoon! And if you think the name of this unit's long, just wait for the name of its follow-up unit in Semester 2! There were 251 OHP slides. They were put on drive G in Powerpoint format. Unfortunately I don't have Powerpoint on my PC so I had to print them all to the Library lasers and pay Ł20.08 in total (8p a sheet)! That money could have bought 15 (now 14) pints of Fosters or 26 (now 22) return journeys on a Bright Orange bus! Rip-off! In the Union Shop you can buy a ream of 500 sheets for Ł2.95, that's 0.59p a sheet. A black ink cartridge costs Ł7.32, and does about 400 sheets, that's 1.83p a sheet, so the running costs of my printer are about 2.42p a sheet, which is considerably less than 8p a sheet!
Exam result: 63%

MATH0115: Mathematical Structures
Lecturer: Dr Gregory Sankaran
Tutor: Aaron Wilson
These weren't THE Sankaran lectures - they follow on from these in Semester 2.
Exam result: 55%

MANG0069: Introduction to Accounting and Finance
Lecturer: Dr Graham Ray
The anticlimax to the week: A 2 hour lecture when the rest were only 1 hour long.
Exam result: 34%

I also took post-GCSE French as a free choice unit.

Semester 2

MATH0023: C Programming
Lecturer: Professor John Fitch
Tutor: Dave Power
Fitch thinks the net is the biggest waste of time in the world, so he uses things called files to publish suitable programs, exercise sheets, etc. Yet he has his own webpage. His surname can also be spelt ffitch (with 2 lower-case f's)
Exam result: 67%

MATH0024: Information Management 2
Lecturers: Dr Tony Robinson, Dr Dan Richardson
No, not the Tony Robinson off the telly! In the first week there were 3 lectures (2 on Monday, 1 on Tuesday) but in subsequent weeks only the first Monday lecture survived! In the first half Tony Robinson lectured on Statistics, in the second half Dan Richardson lectured on Applied Mathematics with some set theory. More groupwork, this time the original group was formed from everyone who bothered turning up to the first lab session! However, the group ended up as the Thursdays: Simon from my house, me, Joe Parman, Stu Wilson, Tom Bible and Philip Garrad.
Exam result: 60%

MATH0025: Machine Architectures, Assemblers and Low-level Programming
Lecturer: Dr Russell Bradford
Tutor: Adam Batenin
You got marks just for turning up to the labs!
Exam result: 82% - I didn't miss a single lab!

MATH0004: Sets and Sequences
Lecturer: Dr Gregory Sankaran
Tutor: Paul Spencer
Do you remember the Dave Bish kwotes, and how many Sankaran quotes there were?
Sankaran: ... p is false and q is true.
Me: Surely it should be p true and q false?
Banjo: Poser!
(I bang my head on the desk because I still thought I wasn't a poser)
Sankaran: Oh, he does this all the time!
(Laughter)
Slightly further on in the same lecture, Sankaran wrote on the blackboard:
For "unless p, q" it is forbidden that q is false and p doesn't either.
Then a student asked "What does that say?" Sankaran read out:
For "unless p, q" it is forbidden that q is false and p-
He then rubbed off "doesn't either". There was laughter, then he wrote "is also false."
Exam result: 52%

MANG0074: Business Information Systems
Lecturers: Stuart Barnes (now Dr Stuart Barnes), Dr Richard Vidgen
They both came to the first lecture, then it was Stuart Barnes for the first half, Richard Vidgen for the second half, they both came to the last lecture for consolidation. Yet more groupwork: this time I was put with John Collomosse, Greg Bullock, Tim (or Ashley if you're a lecturer), Paul "Banjo" Randall, Geoff Cutler, Dave Barker and Matt Thompson through seemingly random allocation but you could state a preference.
Exam result: 34%

I also continued with French.

Overall Score for the year: 60%: I'm through to year 2!