It’s something that is extremely important, especially for the next four years. In the long term, choosing between some of the best universities for Computer Science in the county is not going to make or break my career prospects if all else remains the same. But whichever I go to will be my home for at least three years – if I don’t enjoy it, it’s going to suck.

I’ve tried rationalising it all with numbers, but that’s the problem really – Numbers are, in this case, no replacement for good old gut instincts. I know what you’re thinking: “You’ve not even applied yet! You don’t even have to choose your five until September!” (October if my AS results are sub-Cambridge standard, in which eventuality the five would choose themselves thanks to the lack of Cambridge)

But it’s something I can’t help thinking about. Oh well. The provisional order is thus:

1. Cambridge
2. Manchester
3. Durham
4. York
5. Bristol

From my point of view though, the more I think about Cambridge the less appealing it seems really. I mean, why do I want to apply other than the university snobbery? It’s more than just a name, but if I graduate with a First Class Honours degree from Manchester, Durham or Bristol it’s not going to make the slightest bit of difference.

My favourite course is Manchester’s or Durham’s, depending how much weighting we give to the Industrial Placement, and I like Durham most out of all these cities with Cambridge and York close seconds. I like the idea of a collegiate uni (i.e. Cambridge and Durham) though ideally, I’d want to be close enough to home that I can visit but far enough away that I’m not expected to often.

Then there’s costs to factor in, but I can find no consistent standard to compare them all to. I really don’t know what to think really. So tell me, what do you think? Any comments are much appreciated.

~ Godders.

And yet, I don’t feel stressed at all, which is a tad weird to be frank. I’ve got quite a lot to write though.

For once, we’ll start at the beginning of the day: The Doss Skills Lesson. Was checking out Warwick’s website and it looks like their CompSci course is actually crap. They might be slipping down the list by the time I actually submit my UCAS application. Everyone else was working on Personal Statements because like fools they hadn’t finished their first draft yet.

I can’t be so cocky about Maths coursework though. Draft is in for Monday and I’ve done next to nothing on the writing front. All the maths is there, but I dislike all the wordy crap. Sigh.

We’ve started Mechanics 2 on the Applied side of Maths, but Friction honestly isn’t that interesting – at least not with the examples we’ve been doing so far. I imagine it’ll get more complex soon though.

I was going to get a Statistics 2 book (as I intend to be doing an AS in Additional Further Maths: 3 extra modules which are looking like being Mechanics 3, Statistics 3 and Further Pure 3) but I forgot. Go me. I’ll have to be sure to remember that tomorrow.

At lunch, I had my singing lesson. Which, as always, was great. Absolutely love it, and I like the approach that is currently being taken – start with basic techniques, then get thrown into the deep end, then go back to the basics and realise they’re easy. It works. (Con: I then spent the rest of lunch singing in Room 41, haha)

Chemistry proved, as usual, to be pointless. One week of crappy lessons to go, then it’s done. Thank goodness for that. And Computing was cancelled, so I hung around with Matty B etc. for a bit. We went around finding all of the pictures of Leonidas (from 300) that have been stuck over people’s faces on various posters all over the school.

Period 10 entailed some preliminary work for when I hopefully have my Cambridge interview in the winter. Mr Crowther, despite his awesomeness, doesn’t do computers, but thankfully he has a transcript of a previous student’s CompSci interview and lots of it is logic/maths based anyway.

The questions were quite cool, to be honest. I like the whole concept of thinking on my feet for each question and needing a fairly broad knowledge of my subject. The four questions we covered involved Permutations, Logic, Problem Solving and optimizing the solution and Natural Logarithms, all of which I can deal with. If it doesn’t get any more complex, then the interview could well be a doddle.

I came home and played on Forza Motorsport 2. Getting 115GS in one day is satisfying – I completed the Arcade side of the game (Exhibition Races and Time Trials) but still have a ways to go on the Career side. I’m going to play more of Infinite Undiscovery this weekend though.

Then the cricket highlights. Our tail-enders performed well, Swann and Broad are turning into excellent all-rounders, and I thought our score of 435 was respectable. Then the Aussies came out. I think not bringing in the spinners early was a mistake but then, I’m not the captain. My prediction: High-scoring draw. Unless they fold tomorrow, or we fold when we finally skittle them out.

The day was rounded off with Torchwood. Most dramatic episode yet, but holy crap it almost brought me to tears at the end. It was one hell of a shock seeing their plan go belly-up, and I think that tomorrow may well be the end of Torchwood. I may be wrong.

So yeah… Hectic. And I didn’t even mention everything.

~ Godders.