Hello, I am Neil Woodhouse. I am a recent Computer Science MSci graduate, Freelance developer, and amateur photographer.

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Work Experience

Teaching Assistant

Swansea University

September 2021 - June 2023

I am curently working part-time as a teaching assistant for Swansea University, helping teach basic Object-Oriented Programming, Software Testing techniques, and Functional Programming to first and second year students.

Computing Tutor

Freelance

August 2020

In August 2020, I did weekly digital tutoring sessions for a GCSE Computing student. This work mainly centred around teaching them Python 3, along with core principles of how to break down problems into implementable steps. 

Web Developer

Allendale Holidays

July 2020 - September 2020

Over the summer of 2020, I worked part-time on a rebuild of the website 'www.allendale-holidays.co.uk', for Allendale Caravan Park. 
For this job I designed and deployed a website for the consumer's specification, featuring a product catalogue, image gallery, blog, and online store. This site was built using Joomla CMS and deployed to a Linux hosting solution.
During development, I used a local server running on a virtual Ubuntu environment, using VMWare Player.
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Fibre Optic Networking

B4RN

2018. 2019, 2020 

In February 2018, I did a week's work experience with B4RN, a community fibre optic builder and ISP based in Lancashire that builds gigabit+ networks in rural areas. 
I worked with full-time employees on deploying new areas of network,blowing and splicing fibre optic cabling, and walking new customers through the service contract. I also worked on configuring new switches to be deployed to distribution cabinets, and learnt about the organisation structure, working in a team at a small company.

I continued working with B4RN in early 2019 and summer 2020, through volunteering with the B4AV partner project in my local area in Northumberland. This led to the network beginning to go live in August 2020 before my return to University.

Education

Computer Science MSci - 1st

Swansea University

2019 - 2023

I am currently in my 4th Year of a Computer Science integrated masters at Swansea University.
My average grade over the last 3 years is 76%.

A-Levels

Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham

2017-2019

Physics - B
Economics - C
Mathematics - D

GCSEs

Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham

2015-2017

Computing - A*
Physics - A*
Chemistry - A

Maths - 8
English Language - 5
English Literature - 6

History - A
Electronics - A
German - A

Extracurricular Experience

BAE Systems CTF

March 2022

In 2022, I entered a one-day CyberSecurity Capture the Flag event organised by BAE Systems Applied Intelligence.
I competed with a team to extract flag tokens from vulnerable target systems using a variety of tools and techniques, ranging from SQL injections to binary exploits. More Info

Google HashCode

April 2020, 2021, & 2022

For the past three years, I've taken part in Google HashCode, competing to solve optimisation problems in a 4-hour international competition with a team of friends. It has provided valuable experience in group development on a tight timescale and incremental problem-solving. More Info

Festival of Code 

2014 & 2015

I took part in the Festival of Code, organised by Young Rewired State, in 2014 and 2015. This involved a week of working in a team to create a web application, making use of open data sets, in local event centres, At the end of the week, the teams would gather at a national centre to present our finished application to a panel of judges and hundreds of other participants. 

For these competitions I did front end development in HTML and CSS, along with Javascript to interface with OpenStreetMaps. For the back-end development, we wrote a web server in Python 2.7, making use of the Flask library, and used an SQL database to store our datasets. 

These events also gave me experience in working to an immovable deadline, and helped improve my presentation skills and confidence, through presenting technical details to hundreds of other developers.
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Recent Languages

Java

Python

C#

C++

Dart

Recent Technologies

Docker

Django

Git

Laravel

Nginx

Hobbies

I like reading, mainly Sci-fi and fantasy novels, along with an eclectic mix of tabletop TTRPG rulebooks, technical documents, and news.

I've spent an embarrassing amount of time in a variety of games, mainly grand strategy and RPGS, often spending more time getting mods to play nice with each other than actually playing the game.

When I have some time to spare, I like to do a bit of amateur photography and occasional digital drawing.