Safe for the next six years

Martijn Hoogesteger,
proud and brave chaiman of Inter-Actief

Late Arend was in full swing last night. In fact he got a bit out of control and sort of turned into early Arend, causing the real early Arend to be very late this morning.

It all started with the interview of the Examination Board by the Computer Science visitation committee on Friday morning. In fact they were at it for two whole days, grilling different groups of people (students, teachers, management, alumni, the programme board, the examination board) in an attempt to find any skeletons in the closet, any sign that we might be going the Inholland route - the polytechnic that caused quite a scandal a few years ago when it turned out they had been handing out diplomas based on very flimsy achievements. I have often wondered what role their examination board has played in that.

There were some nerves about our interview, mainly because the test run, two weeks ago, had not gone off very well. However, it turned out that all worries were unjustified, we had our act pretty much together; and the same can be said about the others. The visi(ta)tors found nothing objectionable, and in a closing statement at the end of the day even had some nice words to say about certain aspects of the curriculum - foremost the final Bachelor project which we organise in the form of a scientific conference. So, it looks as though our accreditation will go through without a hitch.

In between I conferred with Waheed Ahmad en Jaco van de Pol about my efforts to define the SDF3-to-Uppaal model transformation in Epsilon, which was the case study I have carried out in York. It's finished and working well, and although there are still aspects that can be polished further, this has certainly given me some ideas about things I might look into in the coming months.

After the closing statement it was time to celebrate. Especially Rom Langerak, the dean of studies for Computer Science, was very relieved to have it over with, and successfully too: it turns out there had been some last-minute hassles with missing documents and demands for more facts and figures which had him up for the entire Thursday night. So after a few drinks accompanied by a game of Catan in the social corner of the Formal Methods and Tools group I looked up Rom who was having more than a few drinks at Inter-Actief, the student association for Computer Science. This was I decision which I am still regretting with all my body at the moment of writing, because I misjudged my carrying capacity to a degree that has not happened for the last 10 or 15 years. It did not help that I had not had a proper dinner, of course. The students were happy enough to supply me with beer, and though I avoided the green stuff (said to be a harmless colouring fluid) I am still recovering. Which is why, my dear readers, I am for once deviating from the daily rhythm of these posts.