With the progress reports hand-in being close, I figure that it is time to do one last report, this time as a summary of my own experience with the project. As my project has been a graduate diploma project, it has been worth only 30 points, which has meant that I’ve needed to take two other papers as well. Certainly, the juggle of balancing a course that requires my own self-discipline and focus on a particular topic with other courses has been a growing experience, and one that I help felt has been very informative in how I balance my time with the different pressures involved for each course. Certainly, I found the best method for mental management and time management was to write a list of everything that I needed to accomplish and the prioritize each task on the list. This enabled me to more rationally organize a schedule for my time. All in all, the course has been a rewarding experience and has (and still is as I continue with these last moments) felt like a great accomplishment.
What I enjoyed the most:
Probably the most enjoyable aspect of this project has been reading about the development of QKD and finding it to be conceptually simple to understand, and having great potential for future use.
What I found the hardest:
For me, the hardest part of the project was determining what aspects of QKD I was going to focus upon. My project proposal was relatively broad due to my minimal understanding of QKD then, and as such, I found myself spending quite a few moments where I needed to step back from my research and critically evaluate where I was heading with my research and whether I considered it to fit with my end goal.
Anything I could change if I were to do this again:
I’ve really enjoyed how my how my project has turned out, and how I decided to build it. If I knew now what I knew back at the start of the semester, I would like to gain a better mathematical understanding of how the QKD process works. However, this was not a feasible action to make during my current project as it would have taken a lot of time and resulted in little to show.
What I feel I’ve gained from this:
Certainly, I feel like I’ve picked up passion for the encryption/security aspect of IT, and I’m excited to see how encryption technology and processes will develop.
What new skills I’ve learned:
As this project was research rather than practical or job experience based, I haven’t gained too many skills. In saying that, I have become more familiar with WordPress and HTML formatting within it.
Would I want to take this further:
QKD is very much still in development, although there are some commercial elements to it. I would personally love to know more, especially, as I mentioned earlier, the mathematical and physical foundation behind the process and different methods involved. However, I do anticipate that it is relatively complicated which implies that it would take me some time before I could feel comfortable and confident in that aspect of the topic. With that in mind, the answer is yes, yes I would.
PRJ 702 