Easter term

The result of Part 1 was disclosed two weeks after the exam. Cambridge setting great store on tradition, the result was posted on the front door of the department. I have no intention to disclose the result here, but we went to a pub straightaway to celebrate the successful accomplishment. I believe it was significant achievement in my life.

Right after the exam, I finally had a real weekend for the first time in Cambridge. It hardly remember how I spent the whole weekend. On the following monday, I contact my supervisor Dr Oliver to begin my project. I was fascinated by her lectures and most of my coursemates agree on that she was the best lecturer in the master's programme. I thought she was the ideal supervisor for the one who has no past experience in dissertation, and I needed someone who is somewhat fastidious and spartacus style rather than generous in supervising my research project. Only the disadvantage of the project was that she was not able to supervise my literature review for some reason, and yet the fact of the matter, it was good news for me because I might have not had enough time to work until she satisfy with my literature review during Lent term.

Taking the exam in April has an advantage. Undergraduates and most of graduates have exams in May and June, and during this period, it is hard to see students in Campus except for libraries and examination halls. Instead, campus is crowded with tourists who visit Cambridge to taste medieval atmosphere in lovely spring weather.

Queen's College

King's College

Queen's College

Queen's College

King's College

During the period of Part 2, there are three official things we were supposed to carry out: to give a presentation in the department, to submit a master's degree thesis and viva voce. These works, I personally think, are not that difficult to just do. As a student in Cambridge, it is more about how you manage to successfully do it, and I would give 6 out of 10 point to myself for my work in these tasks.

There wasn't many opportunity to hang out with the coursemates until the end of course dinner. It had taken place in St John's College by the last year, but in this year, Janet had to book in Downing College for some reason. It was a fabulous night with nice food and people. The end of course dinner was on 30th June.

End of Course Dinner. The person (Dr Elliot) making a speech
was the internal examiner in my viva.

There were twenty days left until the deadline of dissertation submission, and those days were not pleasant time due to writing and editing the thesis. I've finished the first draft of my thesis, but nightmare began from the draft. Firstly, my supervisor was not happy with my lieterature review, and I totally agree with her. It was not a good literature review and there was significant disagreement between the main topic of my thesis and the research field of the literature review. Accordingly I had to just delete a significant part from the literature review and reorganize it since I was not fully understanding many literatures and the supervisor pointed out that the structure was not good and a lot of literatures were in a wrong order.