hide

"I am originally from Serbia but have lived in Hungary for the last 10 years. I hold an MSc degree in Civil Engineering and work as a Lead Structural Designer. After acquiring my MBA diploma I have also been involved in business development issues as well.

"Besides using computers in everyday work, I did not have any formal knowledge of computers (we had some programming classes in Fortran and Pascal at the university but that was all). The idea of studying computing was not a new one. I wanted to learn more about it and was trying for some time to find a right course, without much success really. I was interested in overall logic and the core things about computers and faced the fact that I cannot find such course.

"I found this particular course totally by chance. In a conversation with my brother-in-law I mentioned that I was trying to find some computing course and somehow we started to talk about a friend of ours who studied in the UK. I put the phone down and instantly searched for the University of Oxford website, found my ideal course and decided to apply.

"I knew that it would be difficult for me in the beginning. I had an experience of studying in a foreign language (Hungarian is not my mother-tongue either) and therefore I was prepared to put some extra effort to be able to keep track with others. What I never expected was that I would enjoy the course as much, especially the Units about Java. It was quite a surprise for me. The structure of those Java units and the style in which they were written had such an impact on me that I decided to continue with learning. At the moment I am studying for the Sun Java Associate certificate. So, now when I want to relax instead of watching TV I do Java. I plan to continue to study computing after finishing this course. As the English would say, I am hooked forever.

"As for the BCS prize, I had never expected to win it. Not in my wildest dreams!"

hide

Major Nick Yardley said about the prize:

"It is a real credit for the course to gain such recognition from a professional body and highlights the significant crossover between IS problems in the military and the lessons that can be learnt from industry. The aim of the course is to provide the military with 'hybrid IS managers' who can bridge the gap and although many of the projects have a distinct military flavor the IS challenges remain the same across a wide spectrum of organisations. By breaking down barriers and learning to draw upon the latest thinking in industry there is scope for the complex military environment to glean real benefit from training people to exploit this professional field."

The Graduation Day was on 21 July 2006; unfortunately Major Yardley was not able to attend.
After the very colourful ceremony and lunch there were displays by:

• The Royal Signals Motorcycle Display Team
• The White Helmets
• The Display Hawk of 100 Squadron
• The Band of HM Royal Marines Portsmouth

hide

Brian has come to the end of the first year of the Diploma in Computing and obtained the highest mark on assessments prior to the Summer schools added to his exam score(an overall average mark of 94%). The prize includes:

• A cheque for £125
• BCS Student Course Membership
• A certificate
• Framed by Oxfordshire Branch

Brian's comments on his award follow:

Leaving Science teaching after over 30 years was a good idea, yet finding another suitable career proved difficult. After over 6 months of not working and still looking for inspiration my wife came across a leaflet promoting the Oxford 'Computing via the Internet' Diploma in the local library. Having had an interest since my ZX81, through a Spectrum, a PCW, a 386 and several Pentiums, and always thinking 'I know the words but not the sentences' when listening to colleagues or reading 'computer comics', I thought I should give it a go.

Soon after starting the course I acquired a part-time job, which then turned into full-time, so the free time I was going to use for studying melted away somewhat. However after becoming somewhat hooked, I persevered despite finding problems with one particular Unit. My assignment marks seemed quite good to me, and my comprehension of computer magazines and articles moved from words, to phrases, and began to creep towards sentences.

The prize? It surprised me. I was pleased to be doing well and maybe even better than I had thought, which refreshes my confidence as far as Year 2 is concerned. I certainly understood more of the discussions in the courtyard at the Summer School than I would have done 12 months earlier. Maybe this year I'll even join in!

hide

The prize includes:

• A cheque for £125
• BCS Student Course Membership
• A certificate framed by Oxfordshire Branch

Richard's response to his prize is below:

"Having spent a number of years working in the computing industry I felt that I should spend some time improving my understanding of the principles that underpin modern software engineering. With this in mind and given the time constraints placed on me by my employer, I started to study part-time for a degree in Software Engineering at Oxford Brookes University.

At the end of my second year of part-time study, the equivalent of one year full time, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that I had won a prize for having the highest average grade of any student completing stage one of a computing degree at Brookes this year. I had not been aware of the existence of such a prize before being informed about the award. I am obviously very pleased to receive the award and hope that including information about this on my CV will improve my chances of securing employment.

Given the number of articles written about the failure of both private and public sector IT projects, standards in IT clearly need to be improved. With the next generation of IT specialists currently being trained at Universities like Brookes, the more that can be done to promote the work of the BCS in improving standards, the better. At Brookes we are already made aware of the work of the BCS within the existing modular program; the latter part of the "Introduction to Information Systems:quot; module run by Bob Champion focuses on standards and ethics within the computing industry with reference to the BCS. I hope that by continuing to award this prize in the future this will also help in promoting the BCS to students."

hide

The prize includes:

• One year's free membership to the BCS
• A cheque for £125 from the BCS of which a cheque for £100 was for the student and £25 covered the cost of a piece of engraved crystal,
• A certificate from the BCS
• A frame for the certificate from Oxfordshire Branch

James Vosper was unable to attend Graduation day, on 15 July, as he had re-located to Canada.