It has been really interesting to sit the ITC paper as a third year student. I started studying part time and so decided to skip ITC, I didn’t really hear god things about it frm other students in my year, lots of blogs, pointless etc etc. But as a third year sitting in I have actually really enjoyed it, maybe its because writing the blogs is pretty straightforward, it doesn’t take much time, and so its kind of an easy paper, maybe first years don’t appreciate that until they have sat some of the harder papers. Maybe I’ve enjoyed it because its genuinely been interesting to hear other students thoughts in class, especially some of the first years, who have some really interesting ideas about what they do and don’t know and where this study will take them.

My three favourite lectures were

Marks Problem solving – because Mark always tries to make students look at things differently, its great for the first years to at least have this little bit of interaction with him. It was nice to have a class that was delivered in a more interactive manner, that tried to get the students involved. The class started off with the old ‘connect the dots with three lines’ riddle, then two lines, then one, it tested progressively who thought outside the square and to what degree, not many people got the final answer, me included.

Internets own Boy – Not a lecture as such, but I enjoyed it because it made me sit down and watch the movie that I probably woulnd’t have watched, I learned a lot and genuinely enjoyed it. Whether I agreed with everything Aaron Swartz did I do not know, but he definately challenged the status quo, the current way of looking at things, unfortunately for some reason he didnt feel that the fight was worth continuing for him and so he has become, and will not doubt grow into, some legendary internet martyr. It was a great way to learn about Aaron and his legacy.
Ethics – Great to get Simon in from the IITP to show us a little about how IT is in the ‘real world’. I really enjoyed the fact NMIT went to the effore to get this guy in, the polytech being award IITP status is obviously a huge boost to any degree that we get from here. In terms of Simons talk, it was great to hear some real industry speak, I was really amazed that his company have decided to use mainly open source software and net mail services, but it was nice to hear his reasoning for these choices.

Overall ITC has been great. Cheers