Diploma

While working on my diploma project (officially a bachelor's graduation work), where I had to create an automated library system, I was looking through what popular similar systems already exist. Of course, I couldn't just walk past the "IRBIS" system — I liked the pictures on the product's website, so I downloaded the demo version. The program's icons are quite pretty, there are only two types — some with a snow leopard, others with a leopard, I didn't expect to come across that, where else would you find icons like these, since for now all my system icons everywhere are TLK ones, downloaded from pridelands.ru. And on the program's loading screen there's a snow leopard, just like on the site, nice. Plus the site has a gif of a running cheetah. You can find a lot of interesting things while preparing for your diploma.

Since I defended my bachelor's graduation work just yesterday, I'll write about the day that passed too. I defended first, since the honors graduates go at the beginning, and it amused me that you could tell right away who was going for honors, because all the first ones had burgundy covers on their work. At the defense I mostly read the report from a sheet of paper, when the text didn't relate to what was laid out on the posters. It's hard not to lose your way in that kind of setting when you're telling something from memory alone. Although after I started I got going, lost control and began rattling on, as always, since I was defending in Ukrainian, and in it I don't stumble the way I do in Russian. Anyway, nobody listened to part of the presentations, and from some of the feedback it was obvious, strange... or maybe it's because that person had a topic shared with mine. Still, I don't get those who defended without a solid command of the language and without reading from paper — anyway, stumbling speech in surzhyk comes out even worse (and funnier) than openly reading, and there was that in the previous days too, judging by what people said... Especially if you did the work and wrote the report yourself, then reading doesn't slow down the pace.

Eh, I no longer remember whether I wrote a report for my research work in astronomy for the city and regional rounds or just retold the content of the work, and I only wrote a report for the all-Ukrainian round, but back then I think I just held the sheet in my hands, didn't read it, and ended up skipping a paragraph, even though I'd prepared for more than one day, rereading the report, while for the graduation work I reread it 5 times at most...

The committee asked only two questions, the first was about the benefit of developing on paid tools from MS compared to buying a ready-made product. The second question was expected, about why the topic in the official order differed from the one presented at the defense — for that, of course, I knew what to answer.

Later on, during the defense, it turned out that the university library is already switching to some acquired automated library system, I wonder which one, maybe the snow-leopard one.

The day of the defense was probably a special one, since 6 out of 10 presenters were girls, and that's among programmers. In the end, as the tallest one, I had to help all of them pin up their posters, I stuck in plenty of pins, and even the joint on my index finger almost stopped bothering me, which had been hurting because it wasn't used to all the shooting on the Xbox gamepad. It turned out to be a good workout with all this hanging of posters.

As for the grades. I've already seen more than once how everyone grades by ranking. If you need to grade a group of people, you absolutely have to give different grades, even if their level is the same. Look no further than that case when the physics teacher wanted to give a final grade of "good" to a straight-A girl just because he'd given "excellent" to a couple of people ahead of her, and in the end she had to go take the exam and even buy paper for the department. Stupid. There was something similar at the defense. Two of them had grades between 3 and 4, they got a 4, likewise there were two similar works between 4 and 5, one got a 5, the other a 4 just so there wouldn't be too many 5s. Of course, that's hurtful and not everyone can hold back the tears. In the end the grade comes out as a 5, but some people might just stay silent in cases like that. And the rest, who got just a 4, will be seriously offended. All this with percentages of grades out of the total is stupid — if people show the same results, then they should get the same marks, and not depending on the allowed number of identical grades. After all, if those going for honors hadn't defended that day, this problem wouldn't have come up. Why should students also have to plan which group to sign up for the defense with in order to get the grade they want? Fine, these are just thoughts out loud, all these questions and demands are foolishness, there will never be fairness anyway.

After the defense we went off to a café, where we spent the leftover money from the preparations and chipped in a bit more for pizza and beer. We had a nice time sitting outside the café under an umbrella during fairly heavy rain.

P.S. Judging by the songs, the music and the voices of the hosts heard through the window at three!!! in the morning, it's prom night right now. Congratulations to everyone who has successfully finished school on this occasion. But still, school No. 44 (judging by what the hosts were saying) ought to hold the event farther from the residential districts or point the speakers in another direction. After all, not everyone is celebrating this occasion and not everyone goes to bed at 4 in the morning. I don't even know where this event is happening, I've never before heard music playing somewhere in the city so distinctly through the window. Still, I hope it ends by 4, I need to sleep. What's going to happen to their hearing after this night?! I looked out the window, it seems all this is going on across the intersection in some restaurant. Have they lost their minds? It's clearly audible across both of the large residential districts (at least the residents of the outermost buildings definitely hear it). I haven't seen the cat for a few hours now, and usually at this time she watches the bats…