Of holidays and assignments

One of the things that has saddened me over these last few weeks is the few weeks of holidays that we as MCAST students have. We finished on December 23rd and rentered on the 3rd January. I'm not complaining about the lack of holidays per se, although more christmas holidays and less summer holidays are always welcome. What my argument is against the amount of assignments that is imposed on us. One assignment in particular, Systems Analysis, drove me up the wall.

First of all, the assignment was vague. We were given a scenario and asked to perform analysis on it; inventing details that didn't exist. I guess being a writer paid off.

Second of all, we were required to do research. Very well, research is understandable. I can't vouch for others in my class, but personally I spend hours just keeping "up to date" with the latest software stuff. The problem is that we're required to do research ... and we still have to use the notations that the lecture asks us to. So my question is: why do we have to do research? Why can't we get a list of what we're required to use and research solely that?

For one particular criteria, we were tasked with doing a Data Flow Diagram; but I couldn't find the SSADM notation on Visio, the program we were required to use for the diagrams. After 4 hours of researching how to do that I decided to forgo it and use the Data Flow Diagram notation that is found in Visio itself. The lecturer asked me to change it to SSADM using flowchart symbols. It was not a chore to do, but I don't think that the lecturers themselves should be exempt from doing research themselves ;)

Despite this rant, nobody died and the lecturer herself is very helpful. But still ... having an assignment suck up all minus three days of your "holidays" is apt to put me in a rant mood. Holidays are supposed to be a way for students and lecturers to recharge their batteries, in fact some lecturers went abroad, but with this assignment I did anything but recharge my batteries.