April

Blimey that went quick... They warned as this year and especially the last semester would go quickly but this was a bit ridiculous.

👋

If you look at the state of my blog you can see I’ve been in full uni-work-autopilot-mode. The last sort of post I made where I talked directly to you, rather than at you, was on the 29th October - week 6 of the first semester! It has only been like 21 weeks since then 🥴 so I feel like now is a good time to check back in and reflect on what an awesome/bit-dodgy/fulfilling year this has been.

At the moment, as I’m writing this it’s 2:45AM on Saturday of week 11, I’m just finishing up on the 12 weeks worth of work on my Final Major Project which is Too Much Munch. Now I’m about to crack on with finishing the last half of my dissertation after conducting my research in week 7. I won’t finish this blog post now but I thought I’d start it just because it’s all suddenly a bit scary. The projects are coming to an end, everything needs to be written up and the big scary dissertation needs to be written and actually good. The topic I’m discussing and researching (The Jamstack) is something I’m massively interested in, and I guess you could say is my specialism, and I’m even practising and applying it in my final major project. However, the idea of writing it is a bit daunting. Hopefully my plan helps, I plan to finish all my project stuff by week 12 and then I can focus on the diss. I imagine when I get stuck in it’ll all fall into place and be fine.

By no stretch of the imagination has it been a normal year. We started the year in September and by November we were in lockdown and have been ever since, all teaching strictly online via Microsoft’s Teams up until last week? Or the week before? When lockdown restrictions were slightly eased in terms of education and certain courses were allowed back on campus.

2nd June

I probably fell asleep after writing the first half of this blog post above. Checking in now it is Wednesday 2nd June and, now this feels so good to say, I have finished university. All the work, the final major project, the dissertation, the reflective report and the printed portfolio is all submitted! I don’t have any of the grades back yet but we’re finally here. Who’d have thought?

Too Much Munch has turned out fantastic, and I’m proud to say is something I actually use on a daily basis! 🤪 Which is exactly what I dreamed of being able to do before undertaking the project. You can check it out and create an account at https://toomuchmunch.com and start using it for free, you can also checkout the project post on this website all about how I made it with the Jamstack, and then finally read the first blog on the Too Much Munch website about what it is, how to use it and how I’m going to carry on improving it!

I’m immensely proud of Too Much Munch. I’ve always wanted to build a product that actually served a proper purpose and anyone would be able to login and use. Learning all about the different technologies and architectures available to produce websites (server side rendering vs serverless static rendering), through my dissertation, has allowed me to produce an application that is performant, scalable, secure and cost effective.

In terms of the dissertation, it is something I’m incredibly proud of and hope it has done well when we get our grades back. It focused on the Jamstack and asked in the future will the Jamstack replace the need to ever build a backend? Since finishing all of my uni work I have been applying for a lot of jobs. Undertaking my dissertation has actually benefited me massively during the interview process. It has provided a fantastic talking point and allowed me to prove I actually understand the theory behind the architectures, old and new, and that I’m able to make appropriate decisions on technologies and justify them. Paired with Too Much Munch it also showed how I am able to use the Jamstack practically, as well as understanding it in theory.

Sunday 20th June

I’m checking back in because It has been some week! On Thursday we got our dissertation grades - the final grades we were waiting for this semester. I am absolutely gobsmacked… I got 90%!!! I genuinely can’t believe it, I am so proud.

I will be publishing it on here soon.

Overall, for everything I have submitted this semester I have got:

  1. Development Portfolio (Too Much Munch and placement at The Bot Platform): 85%

  2. Reflective Process Report: 95%

  3. Printed portfolio: 74%

  4. Major research Project (Dissertation): 90%

Hopefully this means I will be finishing university with a first! I will find out sometime in July.

The next day I was then offered a job at The Design Lab, it is a massive honour and I feel so privileged. I cannot wait to get started, they seem like such a lovely bunch of people and I’m so excited to be able to show off everything I have been working towards and learning for the last 5 or so years!