A lot of people say that Year 2.2 is the hardest and that once you (and your GPA) survive year 2.2, your grades are more or less set. Hearing this after surviving the first semester of year 2 and receiving feedback from my teacher to not overload myself this semester, I made sure I focused 90% of my time on work. With the nature of the hefty workload this semester, it was good that I stayed super focused.


Source: https://i.gifer.com/BilS.gif

I would say that what helped me a lot this semester was staying consistent since day 1, the loving and positive support system and the all-nighters at Changi Airport💖 and Tampines Hub💖. With the combination of all the things mentioned, I managed to do well :)  I'm enjoying the holidays now and I've seen my results by the time I write this post. I won't go into too much detail but I'm really happy and thankful for the grades that I got😊.

Since the holidays started, I've been pretty busy. I got selected to attend the Pre-U Seminar 2019 which is such an honour. It's been an enriching experience so far. There's an upcoming interview with a resource person and a 3D2N residential stay at a residential college in NUS - I'm really excited for that!

Speaking of NUS, I attended several university open houses this holiday. I visited SUTD, NTU, SMU, and NUS. Seeing the different curricula and options available makes me nervous because everything sounds so appealing! I do have one more year in poly before I decide where to go though - plenty of time to mull over it.

Besides the Pre-U Sem, I've also had the opportunity to attend a conference on Industry 4.0 as well as the U@live forum in NUS. I'm very grateful for my poly for offering so many opportunities to participate in external events😊

Another exciting thing that happened this holiday is that I turned 20! I had a lovely, cozy party with some classmates and boyfriend the day before and on the actual day of my birthday I went out with my boyfriend - we had a lovely lunch and went to the National Gallery together. I also had a cute picnic with my secondary school friends💖

I also got to spend more time with my family this holiday. We had a staycation and just before that I got an iPad 2018 with the 1st generation Apple pencil! My parents and I were a part of the transaction and I'm truly grateful for everything💖 I've been wanting it for a while for school, but since it's the holidays I've been doodling on it a lot in my free time.

Last but certainly not the least, ezbuy reached out to me and I got to kind of do a little collaboration with them. They gave me a link bit.ly/eznicolebernadette which can be used to register and get a free $10 voucher for a purchase on the ezbuy website! I don't know how many people registered but to you who's reading this, yes you, I would reallyyy appreciate it if you could check out the link above and register an account using the link if you don't have an account on ezbuy😊
They have so many items; clothes, stationery, furniture, groceries, mobile and electronic accessories... I believe that there's something for everyone on that site. I made a post on my Instagram just showing a few looks made possible with the clothes/accessories I purchased on ezbuy😊

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by :･ﾟ✧ 𝙣 𝙞 𝙘 𝙤 𝙡 𝙚 ✧ﾟ･: (@nicolebernadette_) on Mar 20, 2019 at 3:39am PDT

Enough of the updates - now I'm going to talk about the work I delivered in year 2.2.

As I mentioned in my previous school update post, I had to do well in my last Cross Disciplinary Subject (CDS) to be able to void the grade that I got for my previous CDS. I managed to get a good grade in my last CDS, Global Citizenship, so I'll be using this grade instead of the last one that I got for Cross Cultural Communication. This may not make sense, but it's okay HAHA.

For the core subjects in my course, Information Technology - this semester involved a lot of programming. To any juniors or prospective IT students who are planning to enter polytechnic, there is a pattern - the semesters will most likely be alternating from theory to practical work. (Year 3 entails internship, a major project (which may be combined with your internship) and a few modules.) The previous semester was more theory-based hence this semester was very hands-on - I had to create 2 websites and we also had an Internet of Things (IoT) project using a Raspberry Pi and various sensors and actuators. I actually really enjoyed it :)

Here's the video of our messy self-monitoring and maintaining plant system for the IoT Application Development (ITAD) module:

We also made a simple website and mobile application which showed the plant data collected in the form of a basic dashboard using ThingSpeak.

Besides IoT, the websites were made for the two modules; Full Stack Web Development (FWEB) and Microservices (MCSV). Both of which I did well in, so I'm really glad that my all-nighters paid off :)

Here's a video of my FWEB website:

I made an attempt to be more creative with my FWEB website and proposal. Our project was very open-ended and we could make any website we wanted. I decided to go with a studying flashcard website because Quizlet saved my life and my GPA the previous semester. This website was tribute to that and I think I did a decent job.

The website is called Encore and it means ‘again’ in French. The reason why I chose the word ‘again’ for my flashcard/studying web application is because flashcards are something which need to be studied repetitively in order for the content to be memorised.
“Encore” is often said at an end of a performance when the audience really enjoyed the concert and want a song to be repeated. In the same way, I want people who have to study to be excited to study again and again in order to score well in their exams/tests/quizzes etc.

I incorporated a little Text-To-Speech feature where the user can click on a button to hear what is on the flashcard. I also added an OCR feature to copy and paste captured words onto the flashcard - makes it easier for those who are lazy to type things which are captured in images.


Here's a video of my Microservices (MCSV) website:

personALL is a booking website that allows users to create an account and online ‘resume’ which includes their area of expertise, picture and contact information etc. The web application also allows users to book these skilled workers to be their personal chef/tour guide/gardener/trainer/baby-sitter/translator/photographer etc.

The objective of my solution is to equip employers with the tools they need to find and hire employees and to also allow employees to have a platform to put themselves out there and gain more job experience in the skill they have.
With a job portal like ‘personAll’, it will be much easier for employers to find the skilled workers they need and it will also be much easier for employees to find potential job opportunities.
There is a module that I was exempted from but in its place I had to make an Android mobile application with another friend of mine. That project is still ongoing so hopefully all goes well. There will be more updates about it in the next school update :)

The end of year 2 marks the beginning of year 3; my final year in polytechnic. I'm excited and a little nervous because this is the year where we will embark on our internship. I know where I'll be interning at and I think I'll keep it a secret until I actually start my internship. It's a well-known agency and I'm curious to see what it'll be like for me there.

I guess that is all for this lengthy update. Bye for now :)