Asidua

Christopher

I am attending Queen’s University Belfast where I am studying towards a MEng in Electronic and Electrical Engineering.

I am currently doing my 8 week summer placement and am thoroughly enjoying myself . This is the first time I have had experience working in the company and I couldn’t have been happier. Everyone in the company is friendly and eager to help with any queries I may have. I was placed in device services, which is brilliant and exactly what I wanted. At this stage I have completed the device services school, and have been placed on a project. It is all very challenging and through the challenges set before me I have gained a lot of valuable knowledge I will no doubt use in the future.”

If you want to learn more about my experiences in Asidua, please read my regular blog updates below…

12th August 2011
Progress continued into the project, and I was set a new task. This was to hack a program so as to reduce its functionality to one single task. This task involves looking at and understanding all of the source code first so as modification can take place effectively, and a functional result is produced. This task is very challenging, but as always everyone is there to lend a helping hand when needed. I continue this task as the week finishes and will look at it again come Monday.


5th August 2011
As my project is under NDA terms, I cannot go into specifics on the details, however this week seen the end of one solution to the problem as progress faltered, and the route taken was seen as limited. However a new opportunity arose and so progress continued down this route instead. This more versatile and useful program gave much more hope in the solution of the problem at hand. By this stage I had learned quite a bit about Linux, as well as being much more familiar and fluent with the use in this operating language, C programming language and things i had not used or heard of before, including make files and scripts.


29th July 2011
This week added a whole different perspective to my work in Asidua. It involved a change of pace as I was introduced to the project I would be working on, which was very interesting, motivating and added a sense of importance to my role in the company. Initially I had to get to grips with the fundamentals of Linux and up to speed on how it operates as I was not used to this operating system at all. Following the initial stage, it seemed much more sensible to learn along the way, and so research began on the project. I am working alongside Matthew (a summer placement student) and so the task was split into 2 distinct sections. We initially worked together, but began to branch into our separate specific sections.


22nd July 2011
This week finished with the completion of more advanced tutorials and the school itself. The tutorials built upon what was already achieved in previous tutorials and with the help of the textual guide, as well as any queries and questions being answered eagerly by different people here, they were manageable and enlightening.


15th July 2011
This week started with an introduction to the school (A set of exercises designed to familiarise ourselves with the companies system, as well as put into practice knowledge acquired of the years at university or in my case learn all this first hand.) It was very interesting starting working on an unfamiliar system, as well as programming in an unfamiliar language. The learning curve was steep and so I learned a lot in a short space of time. On working through the tutorials it was great to see theory I had learned in university and the more advanced knowledge acquired in the school being put to use in practical situations.


8th July 2011
Previous Jobs left me with a sense of dread when a shift approached, but before my debut at Asidua I felt anticipation of much better things. On the day I started a few other placement and graduate engineers had also joined the ranks, and so our introduction to the company was group orientated. This introduction involved a guided tour of both units, several inductions, meeting many different people in the company and just getting settled in. The first week made me feel right at home in the company and made me really look forward to week 2.