Unconditionally accepted

It finally came; my unconditional acceptance to De Montfort University’s Master’s program. They have 14 spots available each year and I have secured one of them. What’s more, only 2 of those spots are allocated for part-time students, so I was lucky to secure the 2nd (and last) one.

The following pictures were taken around campus on a recent walk.

University rankings are a funny thing. Nina and her colleagues are very proud of the fact the University of Leicester is rated 15th in the whole UK which is impressive. De Montfort, on the other hand, is rated 66th. Now, it’s important to note the major distinction; University of Leicester is an old university (traditional) and De Montfort is a new university (polytechnic).

In 1992 the Polytechnic schools were raised to university level. They are more vocational in nature and are obviously not able to compare to the “other” class of universities. However, it was recently pointed out to me that the reputation of a university is not as important as the reputation of the department within the university from which the degree is coming.

Now, as it happens, De Montfort is rated as being one of the top post 1992 schools. In the recent Times Online University Guide (THE list everyone references) it had this to say about the university:

"An emphasis on research paid off spectacularly for De Montfort as the university achieved the best results of any post-1992 university.

Some 43% of the work submitted was rated world-leading or internationally excellent. Almost all the subject areas contained some world-leading research and in the case of English language and literature the proportion reached an outstanding 40%.

Accolades in the previous Research Assessment Exercise helped bring in annual research income of about £10 million a year in external research grants and contracts."

That is all well and good; it is one of the best within its class. However, the department I will be
part of (Institute of Creative Technologies) received the best praise of all:

"The university has 1,500 staff engaged in research and 450 research degree students. Much of the successful work took place in the Institute of Creative Technologies, which acts as a catalyst for research that defies the traditional boundaries of computer science, the digital arts and humanities, and is already exciting the interest of the business world.

Another £3.7-million was spent on creative technology studios, which feature video, audio and radio production suites, recording studios and laboratories with the latest broadcast and audio analysis

technology."

The department won some of its best praise from Microsoft UK’s National Technology Officer who described it as “a potential blueprint for the next generation of research and development.”
Now that I know I am in, I am starting to get very excited.

However, to dampen my excited, my Website Usability Workshop was postponed. I diligently worked on my end of the project between December and March. In that time I created an outline, researched and wrote the class content, an accompanying 70 page book and the slides for the day-long course. I then handed it over to Kevin at Derby University’s corporate office (rated 112 on the same rankings list).

Kevin has been nothing short of a mentor on this project and beyond. In a lot of ways I have him to credit for putting the idea in my head to go back to school to get my Master’s. He, like me, had an untraditional acceptance having gone to colleges before university and was given credit as a mature student. He is now doing a part-time PhD in education at Durham University (rated 7) while working at Derby.

He got so excited by my course; he worked to get it accredited so the attendees could receive some university credit upon completion. This is what initially delayed the delivery, but I saw this as a great selling point and validation that I had created something creditable. At that same time I handed over all the market research I performed last fall to the university’s marketing department with names and contact details for the people I had spoken to that showed interest.

Over the next month the marketing department worked on an online sign-up system they wanted to implement and they planned to use my workshop as a guinea pig. I did not see this as a wise decision for a number of reasons; my workshop was a pilot project and didn’t need such a complicated system at this stage and (more importantly) if the system was not user friendly, it would kill the credibility of my course. I pleaded, persisted and basically demanded to be involved in that project (pro bono). Of course, by doing so, I stomped on the toes of the marketing department. In the end, the system was implemented and was user friendly. However, the marketing team never quite got around to marketing my workshop. I called for status updates and 2 weeks before the day of the course, they had zero people signed up. One week prior they had one person. At this stage they asked me to resend them my market research as they hadn’t gotten around to using it when Kevin gave it to them two months prior.

I spoke to Kevin and we were both furious at the shoddy job the marketing department was doing. He said he had some other contacts within the university and there was another department who would be able to get the word out. He decided to postpone the workshop and is trying to take control of it to ensure it sees the proper light of day.

On a positive note, I did receive payment for creating the workshop. But it still irks me that I budgeted £500 pounds for the marketing department who sat on their asses and did virtually nothing. I could have signed up more people without a budget than they did with one.

Behind De Montfort University is the site of where a castle used to stand (only one wall now remains) and which is also where the city walls and gate still remain. The castle mound, as it is now called, it a beautiful part of the city and a place I had heard about but found by accident while investigating the campus. The following pictures were taken around the mound with the church and Tudor buildings that still stand on that spot to this day.

This past weekend Nina and I went to see Barefoot in the Park. I think I was expecting it to be more of a comedy than it was, but that aside, it was well done and enjoyable. However there was an incident in the middle of the play that shook us up a tad. There was a couple sitting in front of us during the show and the woman dozed off during the play. Her head fell back and her body went limp. Her husband tried to gently shake her away, but to no avail. He was calling her name and getting a little more persistent and even panicked. Everyone within a few rows became aware something was wrong. Eventually the panic rose to the point it was blatantly obvious to the majority of the theatre that something was occurring. Staff came running down and called an ambulance and the husband was in hysterics. Eventually the woman became conscious and lucid and they left the auditorium to wait for the ambulance which was enroute by now. We found out after the show she had had a seizure.

Throughout it all, the actors didn’t stop and were able to tune out the incident which only lasted for a few minutes. It left us feeling a little helpless as Nina had taken a 3 day first aid course last fall and was at odds as to what to do.

Yesterday morning at 5:45am Nina left for Pantelleria. Two trains, two planes and close to 11 hours of travel later she arrived on her tiny Italian island. Normally I would be sad to see her go, but this time I am not sitting at home waiting for her to come back. And, my trip is going to culminate with a visit there. I am in the final stages of preparing for my trip which I have been planning since last November.

Upon arriving Nina called me to let me know she arrived. She was also happy to tell me the cat at the house she stays at gave birth to two kittens 6 weeks ago which I can play with when I arrive toward the end of June.

I will be doing a small amount of work from the road as there are some procedures Stefan set up that automatically Email me information I need to deal with. Every 2nd day I will log on for a few hours to take care of these which means I will be updating my blog as I go.
Next stop: Barcelona!