By Clive Cheong Took
Many of us will remember the 18th of July 2014. We were proud to take part in the graduation ceremony 2014 – graduands, parents and lecturers have been looking forward to this event, which was the culmination of 3-4 years of hard work at our beloved University of Surrey. Especially for graduands, this probably meant meeting tight deadlines for coursework submission, working in the Penguin and AP labs till late hours of the day, and even finding an industrial placement. It all started in AP building, where all those involved in the ceremony fetched their robes for the special occasion. At 2.30 pm, the academic procession approached the altar where the presentation of the awards would be held. The Cathedral of Guildford was well attended, with parents, friends and close ones, taking pictures and watching the academic procession. The Pro-Chancellor Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone presented the awards and conferment of Honorary and First Degrees. Prior to the presentation of the awards, the Vice Chancellor, Sir Christopher Snowden, spared a few words to welcome everyone and mentioned that although a student can earn a degree by taking an online course, it is the whole experience at the university that matters. We could not agree more, especially now that the University of Surrey is among the top ten universities in the Guardian League table. Iryna Tsyganok who was among the first privileged people to develop an app for Google Glass prior to its official launch this year, and Richard Thomas who has already secured a job after the successful completion of his placement year in 2012/13 are a few examples of why University of Surrey matters!
In this year’s cohort, there were 42 graduands on the programme of BSc in Computer Science, three graduands in BSc in Computer Science and Engineering, and 12 graduates for the programme of BSc in Computing and Information Technology. The ceremony also provided the perfect opportunity to present prizes to those students who did particularly well. Here is the list of prize winners of the Department of Computing.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change Prize – Awarded for the best performance on any of the BSc Computing programmes in the final year.
Richard Thomas
The Fivium Prize – Awarded for the best overall performance by a final year Computing student on the level 6 module, Enterprise Systems Development.
Nicholas Elia
The IBM Prize – Awarded for the best final year performance on the BSc Computer Science programme.
Matthew Trumble
The IBM Prize – Awarded for the best final year performance on the BSc Computer Science & Engineering programme.
Karesh Arunakirinathan
The IBM Prize – Awarded for the best final year performance on the BSc Computing & Information Technology programme.
Jemma Slater
The IBM Prize – Awarded for excellent placement year performance on a BSc programme in the Department of Computing.
Thomas Bryant
George Anker
Aaron D’Costa
The ai Corporation Prize – Awarded for the best demonstration of web innovation in a final year project of any undergraduate programme in the Department of Computing.
Iryna Tsyganok
The Best Digital Project Prize – awarded for the final year project with the highest mark
Dadamuga Emmanuel Mazino
The Department of Computing Prize – Awarded for the best project.
Richard Thomas
The Department of Computing Prize – Awarded for the best all round performance.
Matthew Trumble
After the ceremony, the graduates gathered at the entrance of the Cathedral to take souvenir photographs with their fellow lecturers. Needless to say that the traditional throw-in-the-air of the hats was also captured by our professional photographer, Dr Jonathan Clark with the assistance of Denise Myers, Lilian Tang and Sarah Turnbull, who coordinated the photo shoot out session. The Marquee reception was then held, when parents, graduates and members of the academic staff could mingle and chit chat. Keep in touch via our Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ComputingSurrey?sk=wall) and LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2455657).
