A Full Education

A lot has been happening. I'm taking my final exams, I've had 6 and have 3 left. Two this Friday, and the last one the following Thursday. I had 9 exams in the spring last year as well, but somehow this year it feels even more dragged out. When I was about halfway through them, I never wanted to see an exam again... but I've been dealing with that feeling by doing equal amounts of studying and playing Skyrim. It's only a few more, and then, I'll never take a university exam again. I'm graduating in June.

Sometimes, I think about the idea that I'm coming to an end of a full university education. Yes, I don't have anything beyond a Bachelor's degree, but in my subject, what I've gathered is that you only go further if you're interested in academia. A Bachelor's degree is a full education. I've been taught everything that my university believes is important for me to know, to be able to work proficiently in the field of Computing Science.

This struck me particularly when I was browsing free online classes with video lectures on Coursera--really worth checking out, tons to choose from and run by Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, and more. All of their Computing Science classes I've either already taken the equivalent of, or I was given the option to take it and I decided I wasn't interested. (Apart from a class on compilers, which I attempted to start a couple weeks ago and realized exam time was a bad time, if I wanted any time to goof off when I wasn't studying.) There is actually very little more that a university can teach me about my degree, apart from cutting-edge research. It's a thought I can't quite grasp yet.

And the future is looking even brighter than just graduation. I've got a promising internship lined up for the summer in Edinburgh. I'm very much looking forward to my first foray into adult working life: an interesting job, having my evenings and weekends all to myself without guilt, and of course, a paycheck.

Now, if I could just get through these last three exams a bit more quickly...