Intro

In this blog series I am going to take you through the stages of my Final Year Project (FYP). I am going to explain my FYP and demonstrate, how applying an idea with skill and structure, you can do well in your FYP. In part one of the series I am going to explain how I went from having no ideas for my FYP to getting one and will outline how you can achieve something similar.

This blog is dedicated to those people who are going through the final stage of their university life with absolutely no idea on how they are going to do a final year project yet alone pass or do well.

Dedication

The importance of an idea

Now, when you think of FYP you know, that this makes up most of your degree so you feel big pressure to do well. It is safe to say your level of certification depends on how well you do in your FYP and therefore it is important to have a good idea as this is the foundation of your FYP.

So, how do you come up with an idea? This was one of the hardest questions I faced when doing my FYP because forming a concept is easier said than done. I came up with several different concepts, but I kept going back to square one. Eventually I decided to go talk to one of my lecturers about this.

I had this conversation during my placement year (which I strongly recommend doing) and 6 months before my final year started, so I recognised I found this such an issue and that preparation goes a long way.

To give some context

The Story of the premise

I knocked on my lectures door, and I was like ‘hey Dave I am here because I am thinking about what to do for my FYP and I have no idea what I am going to do for it’ and he responded in Dave like fashion something to the effect of ‘that is okay I know you will do well’. As you can imagine this wasn’t the response I was looking for. We continued the discourse to a point where he asked me a very important question. ‘What do you enjoy doing?’. To which I responded at the time ‘I have my headphones in can you repeat the question?’. He responded back saying how he always sees me around campus with my headphones in, and that music is something that seems to interest me. I found that to be a eureka moment, the penny dropped for me and I actually came up with a premise which carried me through not just my FYP but also my final year which is if I can find interest in something, I can learn it. I believe this is a premise which can apply to anyone. 

The Idea

With my new idea and premise in mind and after some iterations I came up with the concept of Musicology (Music + Pyschology) in the form of (Raspberry) PI. The idea was to solve an issue with technology using music phycology and using a Raspberry PI (a tiny computer that you can use to learn programming and do fun practical projects). Below are some screenshots showing the pieces which amalgamated to my FYP.

Part one conclusion

So, in conclusion the main takeaways from this part of the series is that the premise ‘if I can find interest in something, I can learn it’, is something that should be used whenever you come to a crossroad and struggling to figure out what you should do when you have to do something. Another takeaway from this is the importance of doing a placement year which I glossed over with one line but make no mistake it is something every university student given the opportunity should do and if you are fortunate to get paid from it even better, but the real currency of a placement year is time.
In the next part of the series here, I will talk more about combining skills and structure with this idea and how that led me to do well in my Final Year Project.
Let us know what you think of the series so far? Want something more or less? we are big on continuous improvement.

SkillStructor MO.