The end is now in sight! After yearly examinations from the age of 10 (for various reasons: 11+, end of year exams, early A-level, early GCSE, actual GCSEs, AS-levels, A2-levels, university exams), it is with great anticipation that these exams will come and go.

And as always, it is the last set of exams which are the most significant in my life. Like people have said in the past, an education is mostly just a way to get your foot in the door - to enter a higher institution. What happens when you're in is entirely a result of what you do there. Not your past results.

This is different though. This is the last set for some time to come. Whereas it was a given that the next year would bring more examinations and that those would eclipse the current in importance, these are the last. Sure, there might be the possibility of an MBA and more exams later but a good result here is what is absolutely necessary to get your foot in the door to any job.

And that's why this pressure is so intrinsically annoying.

Most people at this point have some idea what they're doing next year but this is the final hurdle. In reality it is no harder than any other year but the mental fact that it is the last causes procrastination beyond the norm.

These last few weeks have been exactly that. I've never been good at focussing on self initiated work and this was no different. My dissertation has progressed somewhat but the project on which it is based has been stagnant for some time. Hopefully getting my mind thinking about my dissertation will help clarify my thoughts on the project. This last stretch of work is unbearably dreary and I will be glad once exams are over.

In other news, as part of my procrastination activity, I've spent a few hours here and there planning the rest of my life after university. The cost of the trip is turning out to be significant, not entirely unexpected but it means I can't do everything I wanted to. Flight tickets are surprisingly costly. At the moment my schedule post graduation is loosely as follows:
June to September - Internship in London
September - Travelling around India with The Moosra
September to early December - Volunteering with the OLPC project in India
December - Packing and training. Skiing!
January to May - Cycling Africa with the Tour D'Afrique
May - Nairobi to visit relatives, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with Dad

After this, it really depends on how much money is left! It might be the case that I'm sick of travelling. If not, South America or Miami looks like an option!

Anyhow, it's time for bed. Good night!

P.S., I'm now on Twitter. Follow me.

It's been almost three weeks of full term here at Cambridge and our understanding of how final year life will continue is beginning to take it's dominant shape. Cambridge has an odd and ancient system when giving students an overall grade for their degree; the degree itself is broken up into parts - for Computer Scientists we have a Part IA, IB and II for each year. When being examined, we are allocated three separate grades for each part. Employers usually assume that the grade you report to them is your final year grade (I'm also told though that we are perfectly entitled to submit any one of our three separate grades). Hence the pressure is on to perform this year since this is completely separate to your other grades. Furthermore, for those of us who did not score too well in the past couple of years, the pressure is higher still.

Every employer in the world will specify a 2.i, which is understandable given the vast amount of applicants there are for most jobs. The system here for Computer Science dictates that only 60% of the year (IIRC) will receive either a 1st or a 2.i grade. This is a problem. The pressure of trying to up your grade in the final year as well as competing with every other student to make it into the top 60% is quite significant. It's made worse by the lack of promising job opportunities. As one of the careers service advisors recently told me, the economy is squeezing the supply of graduate jobs. With the demise of investment banking, a whole load of well qualified and very competitive students are now looking for alternative avenues to a prestigious and well paid career. Supposedly a 2.ii from here is equivalent to a 2.i from other universities (I personally don't subscribe to this school of thought since I cannot have any accurate idea what it is like in other universities). Most employers don't take this into account though.

As much as I enjoyed my summer internship, unfortunately they were unable to offer me a position which accommodated my gap year and travel plans. I'm now applying for jobs as a backup, and with any luck I'll return as another intern to the same firm next summer as further backup.

This leaves us in a state of fear. I've only once before felt as unready to return to university as I did at the beginning of this term, and that was last in first year after breaking my thumb. Regardless, I've cancelled all but the most essential extra-curricular activities I took part in (leaving only cycling). I don't know if it is possible to increase my rank by 25 but I'm going to try.