MSc stuff - John C. Kirk

01:37 pm - MSc stuff

When the provisional project results were announced a few weeks ago, they said that the official results would come out on Monday 27th. However, as yet there's been no news on the website, or via email. There may have been something posted on the noticeboard in college, but it's a bit of a detour for me to make every day just on the off-chance. It doesn't really affect me anyway, but it would be nice if the college made a bit of an effort. Similarly, after I suggested that the department should actually tell people that they need to register for re-takes, I got a couple of emails through (presumably bulk distribution) telling me to do that. I replied to one, saying that I'd already handed in my form. However, I haven't heard anything about the retake since then, e.g. getting issued a new student card (which would give me access to the library), or being charged for fees. Of course, it's possible that they've written to me, but the stuff's been delayed due to the postal strikes.

On a more promising note, I've been having a look around the department's website, looking for potential supervisors. Since the idea of the semantic web was suggested to me, I've been doing a bit more digging into it, and it sounds like an interesting area. There may not be any specific projects offered regarding that, but we do have the option of suggesting our own project title (if we can find someone to supervise it). I've found two people who are possibilities. Steve Barker supervised a BSc project in this area last year. He also taught me on the DSI module, where I got 100% in the exam, so that may give me a good track record where he's concerned. And Michael Zakharyaschev includes knowledge representation in his research interests, so that bodes well.

I haven't spoken to either of them yet - I think I need to do some more reading first, since if I'm proposing my own project then the onus is going to be on me to come up with something interesting, or at the very least to be able to discuss the subject intelligently with them. I've just finished "Weaving the Web", and I'm about to start on "Spinning the Semantic Web". I also have a copy of "The essence of computing projects - a student's guide" pending after that. (I had a productive afternoon going round bookshops last weekend.)

So, hopefully this will all turn out ok.