Chapter 32: Dissertation (submitted and presented)

I just returned from holiday on Friday night… It has been (more or less) a month since the last time I updated my blog. Many things had happened, including the arrival of some new international students in Brunel. Among these new students, I have met two new students, who are the 2011 Brunel International Scholarship winners. One of them is currently enrolled in the same course as I did before, while the other winner unintentionally met me during the trip to Greenwich with Brunel Friends International last Sunday. Moreover, I have met two new students from my home country Indonesia, who are the winners of 2011 Chevening scholarship. As we know, Chevening scholarship is the most prestigious scholarship for international students in the UK, which wholly covers tuition fees and living costs of its winners.

Regarding my dissertation, it was finally submitted on 29th September 2011, a day before the submission deadline. Following this submission, I was required to deliver a presentation for the software that I have already developed for my dissertation, as I did an industrial dissertation project. I was quite nervous when I was doing the presentation at the company on 5th October 2011 because I had to do the presentation in front of some executives of that company and some lecturers from my school, including my supervisor, Dr. Tracy Hall and the previous postgraduate study director, Dr. Sergio de Cesare. My presentation last for 15 minutes, including the demonstration of the software and the Q&A session. Fortunately, everything went well and I just need to wait for the final result now. This picture was taken before the presentation, with my supervisor and my project mentor, Mr. Tony Fitzpatrick.

Presentation day, with Dr. Tracy Hall and Mr. Tony Fitzpatrick

Therefore, this blog post concludes my one year postgraduate journey in Brunel University. Nevertheless, I will keep updating my blog. I had through such a remarkable and unforgettable journey, with helps of many staff, teachers, and lecturers in Brunel University. I would like to give my acknowledgements to Mrs. Filiz McNamara and Mr. Alex Buchanan from Brunel International for their kind support towards me for this whole year. Next, my appreciations to Mr. Paul Bracken and Mr. David Jones from the in-sessional English program in Brunel International for their continuous encouragement and help during my study. Last but not least, my big gratitude towards my supervisor, Dr. Tracy Hall, for her constant motivation during the accomplishment of my dissertation.

Chapter 31: Dissertation (Part 3: Well-Progressed)

It is already September now. Wow, time flies really fast. This means that I’ve been living in London for nearly a year. I feel wonderful as I re-read some of my blog posts from last year, back to the moment when I was preparing for everything before I departed. It seems that my excitement has already diminished as I’m getting used to my life in here.

There are many things happened recently. I got a part-time job from Brunel International as an airport greeter. So, for the new upcoming students, who have already booked for the airport pick-up service from Brunel International, you might meet me on the 13th, 14th, or 18th of September. There are around 20-30 greeters that will be glad to greet you on your arrival in Brunel, as you can see in the photo below.

Brunel International 2011 Airport Greeters

In this chapter I also want to write about the progress of my dissertation. It’s been a while since the moment that I have to face some uncertainties, but fortunately at the moment everything seems to be well-progressed. This is because I’ve just met my supervisor and she seems to be very satisfied with what I’ve done so far. I have completed the development of the software for my dissertation and I also have collected some feedback regarding the software from some participants in the company. At the moment, I’m ready to start writing my last 2 chapters. Hopefully I can continue my good-progress and submit my draft to my supervisor on the 21st September, before I need to submit the final dissertation on the 30th September.

In addition, I believe that there will be new students’ blogger for Brunel University soon. It will be fascinating to meet these future students’ bloggers soon and also to read what they will write. On one hand, it is very challenging to continuously maintain a blog and keep updating it. On the other hand, it is pleasurable when we received the acknowledgement from readers, who think the contents of our blog are helpful for them.

Chapter 30: A short break

It’s almost a month since the last time I updated my blog. These hectic days really affect my mood to keep updating my blog. My dissertation progress is a little bit behind schedule at the moment, so I feel that I really need to do some catch up work. I have met my supervisor last week and updated my current progress, in which I can tell that she was quite satisfied with it. Meanwhile, I’ve enjoyed these 2 weeks and have an enjoyable & relaxing short break.

Tower Bridge @ night

I’ve been to Central London with some of my flatmates on the 29th July. I arranged this trip because Ozzy, my flatmate from Turkey would move out earlier than us. Initially, we wanted to visit Abbey Road, which is the place where the Beatles recorded their album. But, it was already too late, so we just went to Chinatown for a 5 pound buffet dinner and then went to Tower Bridge and London Bridge afterwards. We returned to Brunel at 1 AM by taking the night bus N 207 from Oxford Street.

Emirates Cup 2011

The next day, which was on the 30th July, I went to watch the Emirates Cup at the Emirates Stadium in Arsenal with some Indonesian friends from Brunel University, Bournemouth University, Southampton University and Portsmouth University. There were two matches, the first one was NY Red Bulls vs PSG and the second one was Arsenal vs Boca Juniors. By the time we arrived there around 4 PM, the first match was nearly finished. However, the second match was enjoyable and ended with 2-2 draw. After the match, I went to Westminster area to have dinner and then took picture from opposite of Big Ben.

Time really flies so fast. I feel like I just arrived here yesterday, but then it’s already almost a year now. At the moment, besides writing my dissertation, other agenda that I need to do are hunting for accommodation and preparing for a part-time job as either an airport greeter or a student mentor in September. Hunting for off-campus accommodation is not an easy thing to do, especially because one of my flatmates wants to buddy up with me. Based on my experience and also suggestions from other students, we try to find it on Gumtree or Spareroom. Some students, who formed a group for hunting, also popped-in to housing agencies around campus to hunt for rented-houses with 3-5 rooms inside. Nonetheless, this option might require an additional agency fee to be paid. As for the part-time job that I will do later, I already feel excited to meet and greet new students, who will come to Brunel this September.

Chapter 29: Dissertation (part 2: Uncertainty)

It’s been a while since my last update. Hectic schedule, primarily because of the dissertation, has forced me to “ignore” about updating my blog. I was keen to join some interesting events held by Brunel Friends International (BFI), such as Kayaking and a trip to Woburn Safari Park; But in the end, I just went to Trafalgar Square for a one-day trip with my classmates to see the last Harry Potter movie premiere on the 7th July 2011 (which was marvelously crowded and obviously disallowed us to see Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, or Daniel Radcliffe clearly). Meanwhile, I received an update from Brunel International about the Brunel university campus life guide book “Destination Brunel 2011”, in which me and the other 2010 Brunel International Scholarship winners contributed some tips that hopefully can be helpful for the new upcoming students.

I just met with my supervisor this morning. I believe my dissertation progress is on track, although there are still few doubts that I need to solve as soon as possible. These couple of weeks have been a quite a stressful weeks for me, because I need to solve some uncertainties that I face, such as how to incorporate the foundation theory that I have chosen into my dissertation and what software development method that I will use in developing the software. Also, I need to wrap up my final draft for chapter 2, which is my literature review. Somehow, I am able to finish it and I am fortunate enough in finding a journal paper that is really helpful to guide me in integrating the foundation theory into my dissertation. Nonetheless, there is still one more work left for me in justifying the suitable software development method for my project, in which I want to finish it in these couple of days.

On the other hand, my dissertation is not about writing the report only. I also need to develop some kind of software as well. This requires me to work in parallel. So far, I have already been to the company, where my project is conducted, twice. Gratefully I have understood their requirements because of my clear communication with the person from the company, who is the coordinator of my project. The first prototype of the software that I meant to build was stuck at some point; Fortunately, I found an alternative solution that I can use and the project’s coordinator already gave me a “green light” to use this alternative solution. It’s time for me to continue my work because I need to see my supervisor again in two weeks time. Later, I will update my blog again and continue my story regarding my dissertation (in which I plan to write about off-campus accommodation hunting as well, as I need to move out on early September due to the allocation of on-campus accommodation for the new upcoming students)

Chapter 28: Dissertation (part 1: Inception)

Summer is coming now. The temperature in here has risen up to 30 degrees Celsius (which is as hot as the average temperature in my home country). It seems to be pretty quiet and boring in the university during these days, maybe because some students prefer to stay off-campus, or went back to their home country, or even went for a vacation. The university uses this moment to refurbish some of its facilities, such as the library and the Postgraduate Study Room.

Following the initial process of the dissertation for my school that I’ve written before in chapter 26, I want to continue my story in this chapter by emphasizing on the progress of my own dissertation. Before I start, I would like to share good news regarding my complete study result, in which I passed all the modules (I even scored quite well in some modules). This result is now official, following the meeting of Board of Examiners. Nevertheless, not all students have a similar situation like me, in which they felt sad because they did not pass some modules.

Anyway, let’s get back to the inception phase of my dissertation. A new supervisor was relocated to guide me with my project, after I experienced a little bit difficulty in communicating with my previous supervisor. I feel more comfortable with my new supervisor, because she encourages me to improve my work. So far, I already had two appointments with her and I’m happy with my progress. I just hope that half of my draft for the literature review and a simple prototype of the program will be ready when I meet her again next week. I forgot to mention that my project is an industrial dissertation project, in which I choose to develop some kind of program for the company. I believe that’s all that I can write for the moment regarding the progress of my dissertation. I will save more stories about my dissertation for the next chapter.

Chapter 27: TERP10 certification

I just finished my TERP10 certification exam two days ago. I have spent 3 weeks time to prepare and study for this exam. Thankfully I (and most of my classmates) passed, although my score was not so good (only 59% of 51% passing score). The exam I took was the C_TERP10_65, which has 80 questions that should be answered in 3 hours time. Fortunately, there is no rule about negative scores for this exam, so that I could answer all questions without worrying in losing some of my scores. In my opinion, this certification requires not only a good understanding of business systems integration concepts, but it also requires good memorization for some SAP terminologies.

My certification started on 31st May 2011 until 13th June 2011 for 10 days duration (excluding weekends). The certification fee is included in our course fee, so it is only available for the students from Business Systems Integration course. Some friends told me that some students from Information Systems Management course wanted to join this certification, but unfortunately they were not allowed. For each day, the course started at 9.30 or 10 in the morning and finished at 4.30 or 5 in the evening, with 1 hour lunch break at 1 PM. It’s really tiring for the first few days, nonetheless the students get used to it as it progresses. We learned 15 units in total and tried to finish 2 units each day, so that we could do a mock exam on the last day.

I think what I’ve learned from my ERP module in the first term was really helpful for me to understand the basic concept. Moreover, the tutors are very helpful, particularly the main tutor (and also the Business Systems Integration course director), Dr. Alan Serrano. Some additional materials given by him are very useful for students. There are some useful tips that I can share here, such as the use of online flashcards to help in memorizing some SAP terminologies. Also, there are some units which have more weight than other units, namely procurement, sales, asset management, human capital management, financial accounting, and management accounting; hence, it’s better to focus in studying these units, especially on the issue of the integration points among these units. Last but not least, most of the questions in the exam are in the format of single choice or multiple choices with 2 or 3 answers; therefore, the old trick of eliminating wrong choices in this kind of questions are very useful during the exam.

Chapter 26: Dissertation Task 1

Finally, I have time to update my blog again after finishing two exams. My first exam was on 16th May 2011 for the Systems Project Management module. This 3 hours exam was quiet tricky but I believe I had given my best shot for it. Meanwhile, my second exam was on 19th May 2011 for the Data Management and Business Intelligence module. It seemed like this 2 hours exam was easier than my expectation, but I don’t want to be too optimistic about the result. In this post, I would like to write a brief overview of the initial dissertation process for my course.

The initial phase of the dissertation was started in early March with a briefing session. Students were given two weeks time to discuss with lecturers that might become their potential supervisor later. During these two weeks, some supervisors also offered some of their projects that can be applied by students, who were interested in those projects. After these two weeks, students who have not reached confirmation with their supervisor will be randomly assigned to a supervisor and then they can discuss their topic with their supervisor afterwards. The dissertation task 1 (which is the dissertation proposal) have to be submitted on 27th May 2011. During the 2 months period from the end of March until the end of May, students were also offered some industrial dissertation opportunity, in which they could apply by submitting their CV and cover letter if they feel interested with the projects. Nevertheless, only students with a good grade profile from the first term modules are eligible to apply for these industrial dissertation projects.

I had prepared for my dissertation since the end of January. At first, I considered to carry on with the project, in which proposal I submitted for the Professional Research and Development module in the first term. However, I do not have enough confidence with it, and decided to start with a new topic. I met with one of the lecturers to discuss about the possibility of doing this new topic and received good responses at first. But, just before the deadline of supervisor allocation, I still had not received the invitation from my potential supervisor. I felt worry about it and decided to approach another supervisor, who offered some of his projects, in which one of them I interested in. We reached agreement via email and I received the invitation afterwards. Then, I decided to write the proposal in early April, after I finished all my assignments for the second term. I informed my supervisor about this situation via email, but he never replied back, which then made me feel worry again because we still have not met to talk about it and I still have not had a real ‘picture’ of what this project is all about. However, I ignored the situation and decided to write the proposal, so that I would have something prepared already before I meet and discuss with him later. I finished it in middle April and then focused in preparing my exam.

During this period, there were some industrial dissertation projects offered by two companies. The first company offered three projects, in which the deadline for the application was in early April. I did not apply for these projects because I was not really interested with the project and also because the company is located in Northampton, which is quite far from campus. The project itself required students to work on-site for four days per week. The second company offered around 8 to 10 projects, in which the deadline was in middle May. I interested with one of the project and decided to apply for it. I got an invitation for an interview on 24th May. I believe that we had reached agreement about this project and I will submit the proposal to the project coordinator in the company by the end of this week. Although this company is located in Watford (which is also quite far from campus), in which I travelled for two hours by bus when I attended the interview, fortunately they do not require me to work on-site. At the moment, I just want to clarify my supervisor whether it is comfortable or not for him to supervise me because I prefer to do the industrial dissertation project instead of his project.