My dissertation deadline is set for the 11th of April. Currently leaving me 40 days to get what is essentially one of the most important thing I will ever write. Looking at it in a matter of days rather than a date on the calender encourages me, via the use of fear to keep working on it.
I spent most of yesterday and this morning sitting on my bed surrounded by books and journals with yellow sticky notes and a pen reading through and marking the content I want to use within my report. I need to ensure I have enough material to fill 10,000 words of quality writing. The problem is writing has never been my strong point. My mind draws a blank every time it comes to writing a report and a struggle to product the content into a report format.
I think this is why programming is my strength. I can see the logic within programming and it's methods but writing has no measurable objective or output. Writing is something that can only be measured by another human and that is only by matter of opinion.
This is what I find hard to grasp at university. I am judged on my writing ability and not on my technical skill which is far greater than any report I can write. We are bought up to work as academics writing reports and documenting everything we do. Yet in industry the aim is to get the job done. Most of the time no one cares how you get something done as long as it's done. I don't see anyone asking Facebook for a report on how they built it before they get paid.
The way I see university at the moment is a piece of paper that will help open doors for me but my technical ability (and charm) will be the thing that gets me through them.
Hopefully in years to come a more vocational style of education will be implemented, allowing people to get merit for what they can do rather than for writing a report.