Choosing 4th year project

Stark

Basically I feel I've the ability to do any project that gets thrown at me (other than performance estimation, yuck). What I'm concerned about is oppurtunities a project could lead to. I really don't want to end up working in a sweatshop company performing QA on McCode when I leave college I'd take a research job if it was the only way I'd be mentally stimulated after I finish my course.

Some of the projects involve work on constraint computing. Since Cork has a constraint computing centre (http://4c.ucc.ie) I feel this could open good oppurtunites. I don't think I want to study constraints specifically, however if they open other doors for me...

There are industrial projects that look interesting like Swing->SWT converter and the ilk. This sounds interesting, and would be no doubt very useful to people. Would only take it though if it provided an opening to interesting work later on.

There are 2 projects which involve biological modelling. This sounds interesting, biochemistry/microbiology was my second choice for college course. Need a partner to do the project with though, don't have anyone in mind that I could do it with.

Any thoughts? (Really I want to get an inside foot somewhere I'd be happy and avoid the computer industry sweatshop sentence).

gobby

Whatever you go for you should probably factor in the supervisors as a deciding factor also. I've heard of plenty of people who end up with a rubbish supervisor (ie. unhelpfull if any problems/questions arise) and have a much more stressfull time due to it. Thats my contribution anyways...

rainer

I'm facing the same problem here...
Thinking of doing some project on java web,MIDP or something...
Or java games on mobile sounds very cool too
But I'm not sure which kind of project could achieve a better result... need a honor degree to continue for postgra....

jesus_thats_gre

What sort of weighting is applied to your 4th year project? I done my degree in Dundalk IT and the final year project had the same weighting as a normal subject, i.e. 1/6... I am guessing UCC give it a higher weighting? If not, an important lesson learned by alot of people is not to spend a stupid amount of time on the project compared to an average subject... Straight forward thing to say but many folk loose the run of themselves creating their baby!! I did and got 75% in my project but my other project suffered...


I done my project on UMTS which is the 3G cellular standard being adopted in Ireland.. I worked part time for a mobile company in college so that was handy and helped me move on to better things after college.. What I noticed too is that when you leave college you see so many things that you would have loved to have known existed that you know you would have wanted to research... Some I have come across are:

- How telecoms companies evolved from the early 80's to the present day from a technology perspective. Sound waffly (titles gotta be ) but in my experience telecoms networks and their billing system started of as one thing and evolved into a monster with so many legacy and modern component (software and hardware) working together...

- A feasability study into the modernising of the above or legacy mainframes systems used in banks..

- Something with project management!

*Note - its is 4am and my head is a bit all over the shop.. If my post is a bit strange, say it, and I will address it 2moro...

In_Diana_Jones

Originally posted by jesus_thats_gre
What sort of weighting is applied to your 4th year project? I done my degree in Dundalk IT and the final year project had the same weighting as a normal subject, i.e. 1/6... I am guessing UCC give it a higher weighting? If not, an important lesson learned by alot of people is not to spend a stupid amount of time on the project compared to an average subject... Straight forward thing to say but many folk loose the run of themselves creating their baby!! I did and got 75% in my project but my other project suffered...


I done my project on UMTS which is the 3G cellular standard being adopted in Ireland.. I worked part time for a mobile company in college so that was handy and helped me move on to better things after college.. What I noticed too is that when you leave college you see so many things that you would have loved to have known existed that you know you would have wanted to research... Some I have come across are:

- How telecoms companies evolved from the early 80's to the present day from a technology perspective. Sound waffly (titles gotta be ) but in my experience telecoms networks and their billing system started of as one thing and evolved into a monster with so many legacy and modern component (software and hardware) working together...

- A feasability study into the modernising of the above or legacy mainframes systems used in banks..

- Something with project management!

*Note - its is 4am and my head is a bit all over the shop.. If my post is a bit strange, say it, and I will address it 2moro...

Your head is all over the shop and this post is a bit strange!

jesus_thats_gre

Originally posted by In_Diana_Jones
Your head is all over the shop and this post is a bit strange!

Will some mod ban this chap.. All he does is make pointless remarks about my posts, regardless of how much I am trying to contribute to the community..

I think you should use you time better young sir!

Slaanesh

In ITB we were given a pool of projects to choose from. None of the projects in the pool really interested me so I thought up of my own.

My thesis went something as follows:

"Analysing the effects of traffic throughput on traffic density in the blanchardstown area."

To do this I wrote a java application that allowed a user to construct a road network based on various different components. Such things like roundabouts, t-junctions, crossroads. You then run the simulation and cars start to drive through the network and one can analyse the points where congestion occurs, increase and decrease traffic lights changing times and so on. It was a pretty cool project and I got my A.

Try to be innovative with your idea and do something that hasn't been done that much previously.

Ok, i'm not that much help but good luck !!

rob1891

If you want to end up in a research job you'll probably need to do some postgrad work, masters or phd. I've just finished my degree and got offered a phd through the work I did on my final year project. I think a few others have at least made it well known to the department that they are capable students and are on their way (through a summer internship/project) to getting started on a phd/research masters also. Some people of course get the grades to impress, but I'm not much into exams and the project can be a neat way around them

So if you know you want to do postgrad and you know the area you want to do it in, or even the supervisor you want to do it with then it's fairly simple to choose your project. If not, then look to the supervisor of the project almost as much as the content of it. Find out what he/she has been like for students in previous years, see how many postgrads she/he has how much grants he has received lately, what the rest of the department thinks of that person etc. etc.

At least, you will want to get a reference from your supervisor at the end, unless you have good industry experience & references already. At most, you could get a postgrad from him/her or get recommended to a collegue in the same department or somewhere your supervisor is well known (& respected hopefully).

oh ... basically what gobby said (but 3 times as long)

Rob