My First Year at UL 👨‍🎓

Semesters Diary

Read about my first year experience as a Computer Science student at UL.

My 1st semester at the University of Limerick

Orientation Week

In the week before the semester started, there was a lot going on: Orientation, Treasure Hunt, even the fire show! Thanks to these awesome events, I had the luck to meet some very interesting people, whom I’ve befriended. I also visited the city, although our campus is way nicer.

Fresher’s Week

After checking out the gym and the swimming pool, I decided I want to take advantage of UL’s amazing sport facilities. That’s why I joined the volleyball and badminton club. Unfortunately, there’s currently no tennis club on the UL Wolves website.

Midterms

Since I enjoyed every lecture of every module, I knew I was ready for the exams. It was much more interesting than high school lectures. I could actually understand why I’m learning what I’m learning, and that made it so much easier to keep me interested. With that, I knew I can achieve a good score.

SUBJECT	RESULT
INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING	100%
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS	100%
FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTER ORGANISATION	100%
FOUNDATIONS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE	99%

Final Exams

While dealing with such tasks as acquiring my PPS number, applying for the SUSI grant, and getting Chrismas gifts, the time had come for me to prepare for the final exams. Drawing from my experience with midterms, I knew what to expect. Here’s how it went.

SUBJECT	GRADE
INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING	A1
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS	A1
FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTER ORGANISATION	A1
FOUNDATIONS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE	A1
REPRESENTATION AND MODELLING	A1

Note: swimming in the evening is the perfect way to clear the mind

My 2nd semester at the University of Limerick

Holidays

During the holidays, I dedicated time to improving my coding skills and preparing for the second semester. I expanded my coding portfolio and gained insights into implementing Java interfaces for GUIs. After spending beautiful time with my family and friends, and also attending The Kellner Family Foundation scholars’ meeting, I returned to Ireland.

Back in Ireland and the Global COOP Programme

The beginning of the second semester had been fairly quick, but I was thrilled to continue my journey. There had been quite a lot of work especially with the Cooperative Education placement preparation, which I intend to undertake overseas. I’ve created myself a CV and undertook a screening interview, where I got more information about the Global Programme. My original plan was to go to Germany, however it looks like UL has more opportunities in the Netherlands and Croatia.

Patch Hackathon

There was a Patch x ISE Hackaton happening on 17th of February and I secured myself a place. It was a great opportunity to work on a project in a team. With an idea for the project, I took upon myself the project-lead role and collaborated with 5 other team members. I have written more about the event on my LinkedIn profile.

Tennis Club Establishment

After many weeks of work, establishing the committee, promoting the club and searching for potential members, I was given the opportunity to present the club at the Clubs and Societies Council meeting. As a result, the tennis club has been officialy ratified. It is going to be a lot of work, but I believe we can make it into something big. We are starting next semester.

Tennis Tournament and Final Exams

I feel like the second semester went by much faster than the first one. Before the final exams, I joined my first Irish tennis tournament at the Catholic Institute Athletic Club, where I managed to get to semifinals in the MS3 grade. It was a good experience and I even met some people from Slovakia.
Luckily, I still had time after the tournament to study for the exams. And here are my results.

SUBJECT	GRADE
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT	A1
COMPUTER MATHS	A1
COMPUTER SYSTEMS ORGANISATION	A1
GAMES MODELLING DESIGN	A1
FOUNDATIONS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE 2	A1

Note: playing guitar is a very fun activity too