Hello Chaps…
Today’s posting
will be about my journey on the Final Year Project 1 which began on last September.
Before that, I have forgotten to name the person who had my mood to
blogging triggered, she is too a blogger and my classmate, Nadira. If anyone of you loves
blogwalking, you can visit her blog here http://nrlnadira.blogspot.my
. That really sounds like I have lot of followers or readers which is
absolutely untrue. HAHA
Well, my FYP
journey was adventurous and there was a point where I felt like giving up and
change my FYP title.
Everything began
on the last September, Final Year Project 1, where all the students were
required to come up with proposals and some of us even tried hard to secure a
supervisor. I tried it too but I gave up.
Last semester commenced
in the middle of September which I skipped the first week and missed the first
lecture or briefing on FYP 1. When I came back to UTP, my friends were busy
talking about the topics they want to do, supervisors, and bla bla bla. Everyone
spitted out their brilliant and ambitious ideas and everything seemed possible or
easy at the beginning. Of course, we were all excited to get or have a best
project.
The second week of
the semester, another FYP 1 briefing on the cluster of the projects that are
available in which the students must choose or come up with a title that
belongs to a specific cluster; Datalogy, Information System and etc. During the
briefing, the lecturers that representing the clusters were given a chance to
talk or promote their areas and there was a lecturer, Dr Izatdin, he really encouraged
students to do tangible products as he suggested that intangible products are
less interesting. He showed us the past projects did by his students who actually
won “Best FYP” or received awards. I tell you, most of us were really impressed
with the achievements by his students and of course he succeeded planting that mind set – “you
will only succeed if you do tangible products”
I was like. “what am I going to do now” “I need to score
but I am not good at programming though”. So I went back and start googling
the latest IT projects bla bla bla. But then, I asked myself “what do I really want to do in life” “finance!”.
Yeah. It is finance. I really like Financial subjects even I scored
averagely. I figured that I want to develop a website which focuses on finance forecasting
and apply all the knowledge that I learnt. The next was to secure a supervisor
who will guide me throughout the project.
Securing a supervisor was not an easy task. I really analysed who are
good with algorithm or mathematics, development and etc. The only name that
crossed my mind was Dr. PDD Dominic. He was my lecturer for Statistics and
Empirical Method. I looked up his email address at UTP directory and sent him
an email saying that I would want him to be my supervisor. He replied my email
in the next day and asked me to see him. So, I went to his office and told him
my ideas. Dr. PDD Dominic is an Indian from India. His accent is real and he always
does the head movements when people talk to him.
While I was
telling my ideas, he nodded but side-to-side. It was funny! Haha. After all, he
told me that “it existed already and
nothing new. Find another idea”. I was like “what am I going to do now”. I went back to him for few times with
new ideas and still he rejected my ideas
but when I asked him his ideas, he couldn’t provide one. I gave up on him and just
focus in finding the project topic on my own. I was quite ambitious too then. Friends
were all eager to have projects that use Arduino and so was I. I googled the Arduino
projects that related to security things because I kind of “crazy” on security
measures, the real security like surveillance, automated sentry and etc. While I
was browsing and browsing, I found a Face Recognition project that uses Arduino
and yeah “I like this”.
I wrote my project
proposal and left the supervisor name blank as I could not find any supervisor
and I did not care about that anymore. “I
will be fine with any supervisor”. Proposal sent and I just have to wait
for the name list to be released. A week after the submission, a list was
uploaded in the e-learning. I was assigned to AP Dr Ahmad Kamil, Dean Faculty
of Science and Information Technology whom I have never met before. I told my
friends about this and they gave positive comments on him. Ahhhh Legaaaa… The first meeting with him was on Friday, 16th
of October 2015. I explained my ideas to him and he asked me “sure you can do that?” I said “InsyaAllah, I will try my best”. The
best part of the meeting was he told me to just submit everything via email and
he did not concern much on the logbook submission in which I can send it at the
end of the semester. Easy life!
And of course as
student, I do procrastinate a lot like all the times. For the FYP 1, we were
only required to submit an Interim Report by week 12. It was fourth week at the
time and I paused the progress until week 8, 4 weeks before the submission.
Days passed and
still nothing written on the report. Even my Supervisor did not call me for a
meeting or to see the progress. I lived happily while some of my friends were
struggling to satisfy their supervisors instructions. Their supervisors were
quite strict and annoying I guess because my friends had to see them very often
like every week. I was very lucky to have a very super busy supervisor and
seriously, that was fine to me. I was not disturbed or forced to this or that
in his ways.
When it came to
week 8, I began writing my report but the only problem was I had no place to
refer on the format and how the writing should be. I have a friend, which among
many, I believe her the most since she had done perfect work on the past assignments
or projects, Nadiah Ruslee. She told me that she meets her supervisor quite
often and the supervisor is particular about her write up like number of pages,
length of a topic, and etc. I referred to her a lot of things, from the Abstract
until the Conclusion. She even suggested me to use Mendeley which really helped
me in citing and compute the reference list. Well, Nadiah, thank you for you
helps in which I would not be able to finish the report perfectly if you were
not there. I might be able to finish it but it would not be that perfect or
just cincai boncai. I even asked her to check my report and
she reverted back with some comments on it. She was really nice! There were others too who had
helped me or shared with me their knowledge on the report like Miza and Una.
So, with the assistance, I managed to submit the report on time and ready for the next phase, the Proposal
Defense Presentation.
I was scheduled to
present it in front of my supervisor, AP Dr. Ahmad Kamil and Mr Jale (Internal
Examiner). A day before the presentation, I was told that Mr Jale was away and
could not be there for the presentation which had me to reschedule the date to Friday
morning (if not mistaken), and both my supervisor and Mr Jale agreed to it.
Later on the Friday morning, I went to a meeting room in Blok L (supervisor’s
office) at 8 am as agreed and only my supervisor turned up and we waited for 20
minutes for Mr Jale to arrive which he never arrived. We called his number for
many times but he did not pick it up. Dr. Kamil said “Let us just proceed”. Bla bla bla bullshit here and there, I did
the presentation and it went well. Dr.
Kamil was quite interested with the project and even gave brilliant ideas on
how I can improve it or make it more interesting. Fuhhh..One thing gone. But I
still need to present it to Mr Jale.
Later that day, Mr
Jale called me and explained bla bla bla why he could not come to the presentation
and he suggested me to do it on the next Tuesday morning. I said “okay, see you on Tuesday”.
Weekend passed.
Monday passed.
On the Tuesday
morning, I went to his office but he was not there. I called him and no answer.
I was like “damn. where is this guy”. I
was quite optimist and wait there for half an hour. I fed my mind with positive
thoughts “Maybe he is driving from
somewhere and cannot pickup phone or he is in a meeting (because other
lecturers were in a meeting and the office was empty). Just wait for a while”. After
half an hour, all the lecturers came in to the office except one, Mr. Jale. I
approached one of the lecturer, Dr. Sobri and asked him about Mr. Jale. Surprisingly,
he said that Mr. Jale was on leave until the end of the month. That pretty much
explained his missing.
Damn..
I’m doomed.
Later that
evening, Mr Jale called me again and said that his son was hospitalized and
could not come to the office.
Excuse accepted.
I need to get it
done fast and so I asked him his availability on that night and he said “yes, I
can come”.
Nice. You know, I presented
my Proposal Defense at 9pm in a discussion room Blok 1, Level 3. Just me and
him in the office. Scary though. Haha.
Anyway. I did well
and managed to score A- for it even though I only met my supervisor twice in the semester. Alhamdulillah. HEHEHE
Thank you again,
especially Nadiah Ruslee, and her friends, Miza and Una.
Nadiah is Ms. Holmes (lady in the sidebar photo).
This is too long
haha.
To be continued… FYP 2
See ya!
**p/s : My English is not that good but i'll brush it up. So, don't take it serious ;)
