The Defense

So the specialist's diploma thesis defense ended up being on the 23rd after all, just as I'd figured right away when I found out the defense dates, even though it was supposed to be this past Wednesday. Well, now those two weeks of nerves and negativity are behind me. Along with a whole period of my life...

Thumbtacks really are evil. Last year at the bachelor's defense I pricked my fingers while pinning up the posters for most of the people defending. This time I only hung my own posters, but already on the third one the plastic head of a thumbtack broke off and the metal tore up my finger... I don't remember it hurting, I had other things on my mind, but still not pleasant. Nobody wants to bother with the projector — not the department, not the students. Because you have to sort out a permit and the screen, carry the projector itself, hook it up, set it up, and on top of that you need to prepare 20+ slides, when you can just make 5-7 posters. Although for a couple of the diploma students who bought ready-made theses with PowerPoint presentations, a defense with a projector would have suited them better than picking out slides for posters :)

Word reached the department head about the data from the ""Compass" Rating of Ukrainian Universities in the IT field of study"; I might comment on this in a couple of weeks, once I start fitting into one of the surveyed categories.