Asidua

Victoria

I currently am undertaking a BEng Computer Science degree at Queen’s University Belfast, which I began in September 2010. Having just completed my first year, I am pleased to say I achieved the highest marks out of all the students within my year, with my motivation to continue the Asidua scholarship surely being an attributing factor!

I decided I wanted to embark upon a Computer Science degree as I’ve had an interest in computing for many years, further solidified by my performance in ICT throughout secondary school, in which I was placed first in Northern Ireland at A-Level. I decided I wanted to go beyond the scope of what we were learning in class, and delve into programming and other more advanced constructs, which I thoroughly enjoyed doing.

Once I arrived at university, I thought applying for the Asidua scholarship would be a wonderful opportunity to supplement this interest in learning, and it is proving to be an invaluable experience. I am learning how to use many products used in the ndustry that I would not have otherwise had an opportunity to discover, as well as gaining knowledge within an actual working environment, which will better prepare me for experiences beyond university life.

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

25th July 2011
So, I have reached my final week of placement and am adding the final touches to a Silverlight Application that I will use within my SharePoint site, which will hopefully ‘talk’ to components the other placement students have worked very hard to create. I have had an enjoyable Summer placement experience, and I will miss my co-workers and the other placement students as I have got to know everyone quite well. I am looking forward to the company BBQ, and can’t wait to resume my work with Asidua for my next placement opportunity. I would definitely recommend this scheme to others, as in eight short weeks I have gained a wealth of knowledge that I would not have had the opportunity to obtain through university alone.


18th July 2011
It is my penultimate week and I have been creating front-end forms for my SharePoint site using InfoPath Designer and workflows within SharePoint Designer. Hopefully, I will be able to integrate the work I have done with work the other placement students have been undertaking, which includes hosting a web service and using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I also attended my first team meeting in order to discuss this. In order to refine the forms, I was able to use Visual Studio. I could therefore undertake some ASP.NET and C# programming tutorials in order to learn how to do this efficiently.


11th July 2011
This week I have been setting up a SharePoint Server from scratch using a Windows Server 2008 virtual machine – the most challenging aspect of my sales project yet! I have to say it was a very engaging process but I was able to have the server up and running by the end of the week and create my own custom SharePoint sites. Again, this is something I had never had a chance to do before I began my placement, so it was really great to be able to do something new in a working environment. This week also seemed to fly in as a result of the public holiday.


4th July 2011
This week I have been using Balsamiq to create wireframe outlines for SharePoint forms for a new project I have been assigned, alongside BizAgi to represent processes and workflows visually. Again, these were two programs I had not used before I began my placement but programs which I am now certain will benefit me as I am working through university projects next year. July has therefore started quite comfortably, highlights including a lovely team lunch this week at Benedict’s which was good fun (and quite tasty!), and attending a Queen’s University Prize Giving ceremony which I was easily able to take time off for in order to attend. We also had our Information Services and Administration induction meetings within this week, alongside a number of other new placement and graduate students.


27th June 2011
Recently, I have been learning about the uses and benefits of virtual machines with various operating systems for development purposes, which has been very interesting and a lot of fun. I have learned to set up and use my own Hyper-V and VMWare machines. I had not used virtual machines before I began my placement, so thanks to Asidua I was able to do something new and very engaging, which I’m sure I will be able to use to my advantage in the upcoming university year.


20th June 2011
I have been discovering the joys of having a limitless supply of tea, as well as having an Xbox within walking distance at all times! My second week has gone very well and I am really enjoying getting to know the other placement students and my co-workers. I have also received a lot of help from my line manager and am currently creating an inventory of information in relation to Asidua’s Customer Contact Portal, which will hopefully be a useful resource for the company and other employees. This was also a very good week for me as I received my exam results from university, which went quite well. The other placement students and I were also given many informative induction and training talks within this week, in order to best prepare us for the upcoming weeks and our future time within the company.


13th June 2011
I have just completed my first week of placement and it has been a very welcoming experience. On my first day, I was assigned to the Sales team, in Unit 15, and will be working with and learning about packages such as SharePoint Server, InfoPath, BizTalk, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM in conjunction with Asidua’s Customer Contact Portal. It is very encouraging to be involved in working so closely with the company’s products at this early stage. I would say the most valuable thing I have learned so far is how to become a morning person! Thankfully, Asidua offer flexible working hours which means I can start at 10am on mornings if I decide to revert back to my former ways.