My personal record of studies

Hopefully, in a near future, these courses will sum up to a Master of Science in Computing Science and Engineering^*.

(30 Aug 2000) The only thing I have left before I can graduate is now my Master's Thesis report. Unfortunately, since I have left the university and am working full time, I do not really know when I will be able to finish it. I will probably have to take one month off exclusively for work on the report. It will not be ready during this year though...

I should really complete the assignments in the courses Advanced Compiler Techniques and Distributed Systems too. Would be a shame to leave them unfinished.

The educational programme includes compulsory courses given by eight departments of three faculties; the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the Faculty of Arts (Philosophy) and the Faculty of Social Science (Sociology). I have also chosen to take a course in computer linguistics, given by the Linguistics department which also resides under the Faculty of Arts, and one advanced compiler course given by the department of Numerical Analysis and Computer Science at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). All in all, I have read courses at ten departments under four different faculties at two universities!

The grading systems

I have received grades of three different kinds on my courses:

U, 3, 4 or 5. The normal scale for Swedish engineering educations. U stands for flunked (Underkänd), 3 for passed, 4 for passed with honors and 5 for passed with excellence. If you score less than 50% on your exam you get a U, between 50% and 65% you earn a 3, in the interval 65% - 80% you receive a 4 and if you score above 80% you get a 5. U, G or VG. The normal scale for Swedish non-engineering educations. U being flunked (Underkänd), G passed (Godkänd) and VG passed with distinction (Väl Godkänd). You get a U if you score less than 50% on the exam, a G in the interval 50% - 75% and VG above 75%. Since I was among the first students admitted after they transformed the old Computing Science programme to an engineering education, we got these grades on a few courses given by some departments that were slow to adopt to the change. The problem is how to treat these grades when calculating ones grade average. In the figure to the right you can see how I do: I mark the interval midpoints of the G and VG grades on the 3-4-5-scale at 62.5% and 87.5%. Then I can estimate the numeric grades corresponding to G and VG as 3 1/3 (approx. 3.333) and 4 7/8 (4.875) respectively. Those are the values I have used when calculating my grade average. On some courses, most notable project courses were you perform in groups and your individual achievement can be hard to determine, you only get U or G (flunked or passed, didn't attend or attended). Another example is your Master's Thesis, were you only can receive U or G. Since you can't get any honors with this grading system, these grades do not contribute to ones average grade at all.

All in all 43 courses of a total of 231 credits, with a grade average of 3.85, of which 3 courses is yet not passed (30 credits).

15 A-level (introductory) courses (average grade 3.57), 7 B-level courses (avg. gr. 3.33), 14 C-level courses (avg. gr. 4.1), and 7 D-level (advanced) courses (avg. gr. 4.5).

^* There is no difference between a Master of Science in Computing Science and Engineering and a Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering. The thing is that our department has chosen to call themselves the department of Computing Science instead of the more common department of Computer Science in English. In Swedish, both flavours are called "Datavetenskap".