Year 2 is when grades matter at UWI (for my program at least). All courses taken in the year before counted towards your cumulative GPA and not your degree GPA. Degree GPA is what is used to determine the ranking of your degree. This is the ideal spot for students to step their game up. The first year is to test the waters, second year onward you have no choice but to swim or drown.

Semester I (Year 2)

As per usual, I did 5 courses during the first semester. Those were:

• Computer Architecture
• Computer Networks
• Enterprise Database Systems
• Data Structures
• Business Law I

Honestly speaking, it was a weird selection of courses. Each of these courses had some kind of negative situation. With Business Law, I heard from my Lucian colleagues that it was extremely tough. They already failed the course in prior years. At that point, if I could have avoided it, I would, but the full title of my degree was “Computer Science with Management (Special)“. The special indicated that there would be fairly little wiggle room when it came to choosing courses. I’m glad I didn’t since Business Law turned out to be one of my favorite courses during my time at UWI. The lecturer was amazing and the content was even better. I flunked my first exam, but after requesting some advice from the lecturer, I passed everything else.

Computer Networks was a weird one as well. I decided that I didn’t want to do IT before I applied to university. I didn’t want to deal with networks since I knew how tedious they could become. I know this since I was studying for the Cisco CCNA exam before I got accepted to UWI. To summarize the whole thing, I didn’t like it, but I managed to get a good grade.

Enterprise Database Systems was also good. To this point, my arch nemesis in life was SQL. I disliked it. The syntax was just so old and cumbersome. I knew going into the course that I would have a bunch of new SQL topics to learn. As it turned out, there wasn’t much that I didn’t already know when it came to SQL. What I didn’t know, I was able to easily pick up, presumably since my logical abilities had increased due to constant programming. All in all, the course was good. I’m still not too big a fan of the lecturer though.

Data Structures was awesome. I heard horror stories about the low pass rate (apparently one of the lowest pass rates in the school). So obviously I was quite scared. Turns out we got a new lecturer for the course and he decided to use Python to teach it. In prior years it was done in either C++ or C. This helped make the course manageable. People around me still complained but at the end of the day, we were fortunate to not have to be using malloc like crazy to allocate memory. I was disappointed in my grade here however, I did much worse on the final exam than I thought I would. My overall grade was still good but I was still disappointed.

Last but not least, Computer Architecture. I hated it. I got a decent grade. Terrible lecturer. The end.

I said I wouldn’t speak about my grades but this one was quite interesting. I got an A- in everything other than Computer Architecture. Honestly wished I got an A- in it to round off the five-peat.

LuSATT

At this point in the story, I’m the Vice President of the Saint Lucia Students’ Association of Trinidad and Tobago. I didn’t feel like I belonged in such a role. The function of the role was abstract. I was to assist the President in her duties. Our President didn’t need help though, so I was just in limbo in a sense.

I had also never done anything like this before. I tend to take a light-hearted approach to things but in some instances, this light-heartedness can be off-putting to some. I decided that I wouldn’t change that part of myself though. I figured it would be easier to interact with one another if things weren’t all professional all the time. I did learn to bring it down a couple of notches when necessary.

Looking back at it, I still think I failed at my role, but I did become a better leader because of it. Reviewing my time as Vice President helped me take strides and for that, I’ll be forever grateful to the then President who made me take up the role.

Christmas

In University Life - the Beginning I mentioned that I didn’t enjoy my time back home. This time around I decided to go to Guyana with some of my friends. Thinking back on it now, I believe I should have held back on that trip for a couple of weeks.

During the first few weeks in Guyana, I was atrociously broke. My father hadn’t deposited the next semester’s money to my account and I was already running on fumes since I paid for a trip and survived the 4-month first semester. Delaying it by maybe 2 weeks would have been enough to make the trip more enjoyable. Doing so would also mean I’d avoid the internet struggles of the first couple of weeks.

To say I regret the trip would be a flat-out lie though. I enjoyed spending time with my friends and seeing a whole new country with them. I wish I would have been able to do more on that trip though. I’ve already promised myself that I’d go back to Guyana when I have a better income to thoroughly explore the country. The natural beauty of the nation is ridiculous, especially the interior areas (which are expensive to get to).

Semester II (Year 2)

This semester began a trend of a continually rising degree GPA. It would never drop below this year’s first semester. I found that pretty cool so I decided to share.

Anyways so as usual, I did 5 courses:

• Object Oriented Programming I
• Operating Systems
• Software Engineering I
• Law, Governance, Economy, and Society
• Managerial Economics

Object Oriented Programming was nice. It helped me develop good programming habits as well as gave me a good understanding of OOP concepts which I still use today.

Operating Systems. See Computer Architecture above. Same lecturer.

Software Engineering. Too little actual Software Engineering. It was more of a theoretical course. I mean it did give me valuable insight into the process of Software Engineering but I’d much prefer to be building said software.

Managerial Economics was probably the most I had to do at university in terms of math (benefits of my degree choice). The lecturer was great and the content was always interesting. Zero-sum games and the lot. The final exam was also open-book and multiple-choice. Loved that about it.

There’s not much to say about Law and Gov to be frank. Our entire faculty just had to do it so… we did. I think I slept through most of the content.

COVID

It was during this semester that COVID hit. We all were looking from afar as COVID-19 hit countries around the world. We knew it was only a matter of time. On March 16th, our hall held a meeting. They essentially just told us to pack our things and leave as soon as we could since Trinidad was in the early stages of the pandemic and flights were expected to stop soon. I left on March 19th on what would be one of the final flights into Saint Lucia. The day after I arrived, the borders were shut tight.

With this came a shift to a new (to me) mode of education, remote learning. At first, it was a struggle. My finely tuned, quiet study area had been replaced with a noisy one. It took some getting used to, but I eventually got used to it.

The one thing about the switch I disliked was the examinations. They gave us so much more to do. The exams were split over 2 days (minimum) and consisted of many more parts than I was used to. Examinations would typically require me to sit in my chair for all my waking hours between the start and end of the exam. It was hell. The fear of forgetting to upload your final assignment was insane.

Irrespective of this, my grades increased. I put in the work and it paid off.

End

Do I wish COVID didn’t happen? Yes, I do. So many missed opportunities and memories. It pains me to this day that I didn’t get to finish my final year and a half in Trinidad. I missed my friends and the life I was beginning to live. COVID just dragged me back to square one concerning many aspects of my life. There is no silver lining at the end of this part. That’s it. THE END.