CW208 Questions

I am currently in the middle of my 4th year exams for the software development course in IT Carlow.

I can only speak for the Software Development course but I'd reckon that the Games Development course is similar for the basic things. On the day you register they will provide you with a USB stick. You will also have access to computers in the lab's that you will be working in. These computers will have all of the software you will need to use. i.e. MS Office, Visual Studio, Blender, etc. I am not sure what other software you will need for that course.

My advice would be to attend EVERYTHING. All of the lectures and all of the lab sessions. I say that in capital letters because it really makes the difference of understanding what is going on and not having a clue what is going on in there. Also, in some of the subjects you are awarded maybe 10% of the course for attendance. Very easy way to pick up marks while going into your final exams.

The lecturers are there to help and they are sound out. They really want to see you succeed and they will do everything they can to help you succeed. That is of course that you show an interest, make an effort and you attend all of the lectures. Some of my lectures would happily give you some of their time outside of the the hours that they get paid for to help out anyone who is trying their best.

I saw one guy who never came to lecturers or tutorials ask one of the lecturers for some extra classes in the run up to an exam and he was told never to ask for an extra tutorial if he wasn't willing to attend the scheduled lecturers of tutorials. I believe the lecturer was right in this case. If any of my mates or I had of asked that same lecturer for help he would have went out of his way to help us out because we never missed a minute of class.

In 1st year there are going to be a lot of guys who are only there to mess and have a good time. Thats fair enough because its ok to have a bit of fun in there but keep your eye on the end goal if you want to succeed and become a highly paid professional software developer. Try not to get involved too deep with the messers because they wont make it through the first year and they'll only drag you down if you let them. Have a bit of craic with them but do go ditching class with them or gong home early with them.

A lot of messers and guys who didn't care got weeded out of my course in 1st and 2nd year. Now, not all of these guys were messers. Some of them just realised that computers was just not for them and thats fair enough too. Some of those guys switched courses and were delighted with the change.

I would suggest that you sit up the front. I arrived late to lectures a few times and sat at the back. This was a mistake because I could not concentrate on the lecture because a lot of the students in front of me were playing angry birds or watching TV shows which distracted me. Don't worry, you won't be jeered for being a swot for sitting up the front. It's college, not secondary school.

I found 1st year easy in my course and second year was easy to me too but it didn't come naturally to me. I had to work my ass off to get the good grades I got. You will only get out of it what you put into it.

3rd and 4th year are a different matter. They are much more difficult but if you have been laying the ground work in first and second year you shouldn't have a problem. In between years during your summer holidays you should take on little projects of your own. You will learn a great deal of information while doing these projects. It will also keep your head in the game so when you arrive back to college for your next year it will feel like you have hit the ground running. They don't have to be original ideas or the next big thing. Just look for a simple app in the app store or a simple website and try to replicate it for your own amusement.

Also, become friendly with your class mates. I believe I wouldn't be where I am today without the support of my class mates. We really helped each other out big time through out the last 4 years. If you decide to keep yourself to yourself you may end up alienating yourself and you may struggle through the course.

There will be an element of people who spout buzz words all over the place too and talk all sorts of jazz about computers about how good they are at computers. Ignore them. They generally don't make it through from what I can see. One of the best software developers that I met on my course didn't even own a computer before he started my course with me so don't get intimidated by people who appear to know everything.

If you can afford it, I would suggest using you're own laptop. I used my own for most of the course. And I would highly suggest opening up a Google Drive account. If you already have a Gmail account then you already have a Google Drive account. Your Gmail address and password will allow you into the Google Drive account. Google Drive is free and you can store all of your college notes in it. I have my 4 years of notes, projects, etc stored in it. And the beauty of it is if your computer dies or something like that, all of your files are safely stored in Google Drive.

The beauty of Google Drive is that you can install it on many computers phones ipads etc and all of you're files will be in sync on all of your devices. My laptop died on me in 2nd year so I was glad of Google Drive then! I was able to retrieve all of my files easily. USB sticks are a disaster, I have seen many people loose big projects they had been working on for months due to leaving a USB stick behind.

I hope some of this helps! If you have any question just give me a shout! And best of luck with bro! It's probably the single most hardest thing you are going to do in your life but its worth it!

For any coding projects that you have to do, the sooner you learn how to use some source control software like Git or Subversion the better. This will save you from catastrophes. One minute your code is working fine and the next minute BANG! you change something and it all goes to sh*t. You haven't a clue what you changed so you furiously change more stuff.It gets to the point where you want to cry and theres no going back.

http://github.com or https://bitbucket.org/ are both good and free.

Flora5 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply! It answered a lot of questions I had and ones I hadn't thought of yet. Google Drive seems like to way to go. I usually like to keep a few copies of important files.

I'm just wondering when do you finish up exams? Do most other students finish up around the same time? I'm wondering because I'm trying to get into some decent accommodation. I've noticed a few more places than usual pop up on daft and other sites this month. I was hoping to get an apartment or whatever of my own. I can get distracted when there are other people in a house and I'm trying to concentrate. Plus I can be very protective over my stuff (especially my guitar since it is my pride and joy) and wouldn't want anyone around to damage it.

Also, whats the story with bringing your own laptop into the college? Is it really necessary or would it be better to leave it at home since there are so many computers around the place?

That was something that I forgot to mention. The labs that you will be working in will have all of the necessary software that you need for your course. The problem starts when you are trying to find a quiet place to study in the college in the evening or during the day.

All of the labs are set up for different courses so you will not find the software that you will need on all of the pc's in the college. The engineering labs have different software than the game devs, etc.

If you cant find a free, quite lab to use you may have to use the pc's in the library. Don't let the name "Library" fool you. This place can be chaotic and noisy a lot of the time and those pc's more than likely wont have the specialist software you require. i.e. visual studio. You may request that the software be added to the pc's but this is easier said than done.

Also, sometimes it can be quiet difficult to find a free pc because the library can get so busy.

I used the college pc's in first year and soon became frustrated by the things I mentioned above. I know that the games dev students have their a dedicated lab just like the soft dev students have their own dedicated lab.

We weren't allowed into our lab until 3rd year. I am not sure when you will have access to the game dev lab. Probably 3rd year. So I used college pc's for 1st year, my laptop for 2nd year, my laptop and college pc in the soft dev lab for 3rd year and my own laptop for 4th year.

The problem you will face is when you want to code at home or when you are on a pc which is without the required software you need.

The laptop is not necessary, I spent weeks carrying it around sometimes without even turning it on but when I needed it, I was very glad to have it. If I was doing it again I would use mine for the 4 years.

Also, they are testing out some new virtual machine software this year with the 3rd year software developers. What it is, each of the students had their own virtual pc in the college but they had to access it through an actual pc. This meant that even though they didn't have the the software on their machine that they needed, they could log into their virtual machine which had all of the the software that the needed. Does that make sense?

So a lot of them used their own laptops. They could easily work from home like this as long as they had an internet connection.

They test drove the software and I think it is being rolled out to more students next year.

All the exams are over on Friday the 23rd of May this year so maybe thats why the rentals are popping up on daft.

Google docs is also a decent free alternative to MS Office.

Any practical work is done in labs with the necessary software installed.
You don’t need to bring your laptop with you for any of the classes, they normally give you a usb stick at registration, you will need it .
You should bring a notebook some pens and a calculator with you the first day, if a subject needs something specific like a book the lecturer will tell you. I only had one book in first year and one book in second year both for the programming module.
Theres not a lot of writing in games as its heavy on practical work but you will need a notebook for rough work and pseudo code and sometimes notes.
You can access subject notes and assignments online.
The lecturer will keep note if your missing but it's only really important for subjects where attendance is graded, if you have a valid reason email them or tell them next time you see them.
Graduated the course this year so it might have changed slightly but if you have any questions on the course I'll answer what I can

Do people get good jobs from this course? Good money?