March / April Update

Hi readers,

Welcome to the march/april update of my blogging life.

Study

The past couple of weeks I focused totally on my study. The most important weeks of the year had come. Several assignments, studying for the then upcoming exams (I passed them! Yeah!) and finally three weeks of over fulltime project work in a group. Those six weeks I spend around 60-70 hours a week in total as an average on study and the project assignment. That is really tiring but I passed the exams, achieved some EC and I am halfway the total amount of EC points of this Propedeuse Year.

This is how I felt when I passed my exams:

To be allowed to start with the second year of Informatica/Computer Science, I have to achieve at least 48 EC. At the moment I achieved 34 EC. At the end of June I will probably know if I passed or not.

The Propedeutic Year is the first year of a study. In that particular year you learn quite the basics and experience if the study fits you (well…the other way round in reality…the study hopes you fits in the study…).

You can achieve 60 EC – European Credits – and every EC stands for an average of 28 studying hours for that subject. In total to explain my study is quite a long story. We have four trimesters of each ten weeks. (4×10 = 40 weeks of study in a year). Two spare weeks at the end of the year and the rest of it is holiday/days off. To achieve 60 EC in those 40 weeks (60ECx28hrs = 1680 hours / 40 weeks = 42 hours a week of studying).

The first part of a trimester exists of six weeks theory on two subjects called: analysis (systems like UML and SQL) and development (the programming language like Python / Java / C#). And we have a choice to follow some elective courses. I chose to do at least one every trimester.
The second part of the trimester exists of one week exams and three weeks of a project assignment.

This experience tought me that when I am completely, every day, focused so many hours on study and I am not even able concentrate enough on reading a book with the proper concentration. My creativity, the feeling, the thinking, the spontaneous travels, was kinda on hold. Such as my family and social life was on a hold.

Not feeling really guilty about not writing the past couple of weeks. Because this blog is my hobby. It is not work, I don’t earn money with it, I don’t know if I have a future with it. But I have to pass my first year of my new study and that is what I am doing right now. That’s the realistic conclusion.

The final trimester of the year has started today. And next week is a short holiday week. In a few weeks (say around June) it is possible that the previous total study focus will happen again. Because I need to pass study! And the previous experience described above, showed me that when I am totally focused, my creativity to write, read and experience is on hold as well as my family and social life. We sometimes sacrifices in life, for a better future, a better living, a better life. The most important thing for my future right now, the most important thing that needs all my energy.

Blogging

Next week I have a little small holiday, so a week without following classes and learning. Time to write more and to read more. About everything I have learned during study I will write some blog post but probably I save them for the summer holiday because then I have the complete overview of what I have learned during this year.

Have a nice evening!

How has been your month of march and/or april so far?
I am curious for your response below or blog post link

Greetings by Sophie