21 replies to this topic

[AM4R]

If you did that course what kind of jobs does that lead onto if you wre to use that degree?

Cheers

[st-and Paul]

It could lead to absolutely anything. About 40% of graduate positions are open to graduates of any discipline but in general Computer Science degrees open a whole area open to you. In a computer science degree you dont just learn to program. You also gain valuable transferable skills which is what will interest employers the most. Technical skills are important only if you are seeking employment in a specialist position such as software engineering/programming and web administration where knowledge of specific languages is needed. The IT industry gives graduates an average starting salary of £24,000 roughly at the moment.

A computer science degree involves a considerable ammount of mathematics, I would not recommend a Computer Science degree if you dont like maths. You also have to like change. A lecturer on my course said the technologies we learn about can become obsolete 2 years after we learn it.In general the following specialist jobs would be open to you if you decided to do a computer science course:

Software Engineer/Programmer
Hardware Engineer (a course more focused on Electrical Engineering as well as Computing would be more beneficial).
IT consultant
IT Support/Sales
Systems Analyst

There are probably more, but i cant remember atm

[AM4R]

thanks alot for that info, yeah i like maths so that course should be good as I have a great interest in computers too!

[st-and Paul]

Which uni were you thinking of doing the course at?

[AM4R]

Probably Edinburgh since i live there so it would be convenient

I am probably going to do Computer Science with business and management.

[st-and Paul]

Look elsewhere too, Edinburgh has a good course but there are places like Strathclyde who have a Masters of Engineering which includes business classes as part of the degree. St Andrews also has a very good course (note the completely unbiased view here ) which you can do as a joint honours degree in management. I should say that St Andrews has quite a tough first year though...

[Joel]

In general the following specialist jobs would be open to you if you decided to do a computer science course:

Software Engineer/Programmer
Hardware Engineer (a course more focused on Electrical Engineering as well as Computing would be more beneficial).
IT consultant
IT Support/Sales
Systems Analyst

There are probably more, but i cant remember atm

Don't forget computer games programming, the only interesting career path in computing.

[AM4R]

Look elsewhere too, Edinburgh has a good course but there are places like Strathclyde who have a Masters of Engineering which includes business classes as part of the degree. St Andrews also has a very good course (note the completely unbiased view here ) which you can do as a joint honours degree in management. I should say that St Andrews has quite a tough first year though...

yeah ill have a look around. What are you doing at the moment at St Andrews? Also what does Masters Of Engineering involve?

Cheers

[st-and Paul]

I have just finished my first year in St Andrews. In first year I did two modules:
CS1002: Computer Science- UML and Java programming. They assume no prior knowledge of computers. But the programming you do at Higher is only useful for the first 3 weeks. You start with a intro practical in which they give you some code and its just a lab intro. Then they teach you UML the Unified Modelling Language and by the end of the course you end up programming a file server and client. Theory isnt difficult but some of the practicals are quite challenging. My fav (not) was the matrix calculator which you need to add/subtract matrices and multiply them together and then print the results. It uses user input to get the matrix and you need to validate whether its actually possible to do the calculation.

CS1004- Internet Programming. This is quite a hard module, it is divided into two streams WWW and Networking. WWW is a piece of piss and Networking is quite hard. WWW teaches XHTML, programming Java applets and multi threaded programs (that is programs which are capable of doing more than one thing at a time). It also teaches CGI and writing CGI scripts in Java which is used to provide dynamic web content to web users. Networking, mmm where to start... the practicals for this one are quite hard. Broadly speaking it teaches network protocols, layered model of the internet, protocols on the application level, some basic UNIX commands and programs related to networking. It teaches network programming in Java- the practicals are ok, then some of the ones at the end are yuck. The two that stand out are the multi TCP protocol tester with a full GUI. You have to write a DNS client, SMTP client, finger client, daytime client, chargen client and an echo client and integrate this with a GUI in Java. The last one is the web server in Java took most people the best part of a week to do that one. Ouch. The actual theory is Ok, just the practicals are hard.

In second year I m doing

CS2001- Foundations of Computation-Abstract Data Types and Programming Language Fundamentals. I put links to a past paper on another forum somewhere. I dont know specifically what is in it.
CS2002- Advanced Computer Science- C programming, systems programming (at OS level), Systems Architecture, Propositional Logic.
There is also a module called Advanced Internet programming which covers things like Javascript, XML and stuff like that. I m doing a degree with French so I decided to give this one a miss, web stuff doesnt interest me very much.

A master of Engineering involves an extra year of studying so 5 years in all, it involves doing some extra business classes. If you are doing an accrediteded course then you get a CEng after your name if you join a proffesional society. Depends what sort of course you do, some courses involve other stuff like electronic engineering whereas others concentrate solely on computer science. Dave is better to ask about this kind of course though.

[Dave]

Strathclyde does a Computer and electronic systems degree which comes in a masters or honors variation. The difference with this course to what i do is CES people do classes in physics and electronics as well as a maths class, business class and 3 computer classes which i also take. When the CES people are doing the electronics and physics classes i am doing an extra class in computing, statistics and an extra business class.

[st-and Paul]

What things are you doing in 2nd year? Do you still have to study maths and business?

[Dave]

maths goes for good but business stays for all 5 years

next year is low level programming, logic and machines, individual programming project which takes 12 weeks classes on program design and data structures and finally databases. No doubt missed something though. Its 5 classes in sem 1 and 7 in sem 2 is what i remember the most

[st-and Paul]

Wow thats quite a lot of classes, I get all of the above but substitute the programming project for an essay each semester. Plus I begin programming in C for the systems level stuff in semester 2. I get lab practicals every week, and some of them are fun . Some of the harder ones take 30 hours a week to do! (supposed to take 5, but our lecturers have a habit of making practicals far harder than they need to be). I do my French classes again next year, i m quite looking forward to them, should be fun.

Another great thing about my 2nd year comp sci, is that the 2nd year lab is getting a refurb. Atm it is full of imac 2's on PPC chips, which are quite good, they are only a year old or something. They are getting replaced with the Imacs with Intel duo chips from next year, cant wait .

[sparky]

The classes we do at Strathclyde next year are as follows (clears throat )

Semester 1 : Approaches to Multimedia, Databases, Systems Analysis, Programming Techniques, Logic and Machines + BUSINESS CLASS.

Semester 2 : Programming Project, Low Level Programming, Algorithms and Complexity, Systems Design, Human Computer Interaction, Computer - the Society and the law + BUSINESS CLASS.

I don't know about next year though, some of the classes look as though they will be as dull as dishwater. More so in Semester 2 I think!
lol

[AM4R]

Sparky is that computer science or electronics?

[st-and Paul]

The classes we do at Strathclyde next year are as follows (clears throat )

Semester 1 : Approaches to Multimedia, Databases, Systems Analysis, Programming Techniques, Logic and Machines + BUSINESS CLASS.

Semester 2 : Programming Project, Low Level Programming, Algorithms and Complexity, Systems Design, Human Computer Interaction, Computer - the Society and the law + BUSINESS CLASS.

I don't know about next year though, some of the classes look as though they will be as dull as dishwater. More so in Semester 2 I think!
lol

Algorithms and complexity and logic and machines will be crap, these are a few of the topics i m doing. These are very mathematical and about as interesting as watching paint dry.

[Dave]

low level programming is done in C and we arent doing approaches to multimedia because the course director said we were doing too many credits this year anyway. That is Comp sci not computer and electronic systems

timetables for CIS degree can be found here
http://www.cis.strath.ac.uk/teaching/timetable/2005/

timetables for CES degree can be found here
http://www.eee.strath.ac.uk/ug%2Dinfo/timetables.asp

[Dave]

for people who want an electronics course that has a grounding in designing of the products as well as the academic part of electronics shoud look at a new degree started last year

http://www.eng.strath.ac.uk/isip/course/career_advisors.html

[Scott]

I guess I should post about Edinburgh for Computer Science! But not in too much details as it will bore you!

First term: Haskell (Functional Programming), Computation And Logic (Regular Expressions, Finite State Machines etc.)

Semester Guide: http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/inf1/1Aguide.html

Second Term: Object Orientated Programming (Using Java to make algorithms, GUI's that query databases, an ASCii text game, binary trees, stacks etc.), Database and Analysis (Relational databases, SQL, Tuple Relational Algebra/Calculus, Human Computer Interaction)

Semester Guide:
http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/inf1/1Bguide.html


If you are doing Computer Science, Software Engineering then you will have to take Mathematics For Informatics which is an utter bore.

[st-and Paul]

St Andrews info can be found here:

http://www.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/undergrad/current/modules/

This lists all the modules offered by SOCS. But you need to modules from other subjects in addition to these in first and second year.