[MatureStudentSE1]

I am a mature student (33 yrs old). I worked in the IT industry from the age of 20-26 then left. I have decided I want to get back into the IT industry (preferably as a developer) and have applied for BSc Computer Science courses at Brighton, Sussex, Goldsmiths, Greenwich and Canterbury. I have a family and cant live on campus so my choices were limited by distance. I would really appreciate it if people could give me an in-site into the computing departments at these universities.

[tooosh]

Sussex and UKC are the only ones I would seriously consider out of that list. Brighton and Greenwich replace a lot of CS content with advanced IT stuff (things like Web Design). There will be a few doss modules anywhere though.
Don't know about Goldsmiths.

I know Sussex has a very applied course, with things like digital media.

[swbp]

(Original post by MatureStudentSE1)
I am a mature student (33 yrs old). I worked in the IT industry from the age of 20-26 then left. I have decided I want to get back into the IT industry (preferably as a developer) and have applied for BSc Computer Science courses at Brighton, Sussex, Goldsmiths, Greenwich and Canterbury. I have a family and cant live on campus so my choices were limited by distance. I would really appreciate it if people could give me an in-site into the computing departments at these universities.

Sussex and Goldsmiths are considered more prestigious than the others listed, though I know nothing of their computer science departments :/

[MatureStudentSE1]

I know that goldsmiths has a very good reputation for art and design but I also understand that apart from computer science it doesn't run any science courses so I was wondering if anyone who had experience of their computing department could comment

[Vinck]

Hey there,

I'm a current second year at Goldsmiths, doing Comp Sci. I was a mature student too, though only just (Started when I was 22). I'm also the ever-so-fancy-sounding departmental student co-ordinator. That basically means I have heavy involvement with departmental and student union stuff, and I'm somewhat between the students and the staff. I help fix things, make things less better and even push to hold staff accountable for their decisions; always in an effort to make stuff better.

We have a blog over at http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/blog/, where I'm started to post stuff too. This all sounds like PR rhetoric, sorry, but since this is my first post on the site, it'll be nice to be able to reference later if needs be!

Anyway: Ask away if you have any queries. I've done a few Q&A type things at the uni with prospective students and the Comp Dept are confident in what they do such that they encourage me to 'tell people what really goes on', so shoot!

[MatureStudentSE1]

(Original post by Vinck)
Hey there,

I'm a current second year at Goldsmiths, doing Comp Sci. I was a mature student too, though only just (Started when I was 22). I'm also the ever-so-fancy-sounding departmental student co-ordinator. That basically means I have heavy involvement with departmental and student union stuff, and I'm somewhat between the students and the staff. I help fix things, make things less better and even push to hold staff accountable for their decisions; always in an effort to make stuff better.

We have a blog over at http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/blog/, where I'm started to post stuff too. This all sounds like PR rhetoric, sorry, but since this is my first post on the site, it'll be nice to be able to reference later if needs be!

Anyway: Ask away if you have any queries. I've done a few Q&A type things at the uni with prospective students and the Comp Dept are confident in what they do such that they encourage me to 'tell people what really goes on', so shoot!

Thank you for replying. I have received an unconditional offer from Goldsmiths to do an integrated degree (including foundation). I have viewed a few things on the web about goldsmiths computer department but its hard to know what to trust. I have always been very keen at programming and I want which ever degree course I choose to teach me a varied number of languages (java/C/.Net/HTML). This doesn't mean that I'm not interested in all other aspects of computing and Goldsmiths does look very innovative and cutting edge but I do want the course to be technically minded and not just about computing for the media and arts industry. What I would really like to know is what you have covered so far in your first two years of the course

[Vinck]

Sure, so far language wise we've covered:

Processing (graphics/interactive heavy Java stuff), Java (main focus), PHP, SQL, HTML (if you can consider that?), introduction to Object C for iOS and Java for Android (maybe not a language, but we went through entirely the Java specific to android).

I did some theoretical language stuff as a comp sci first year: Hope, etc. Those are more teaching tools though. I know Sebastian (Comp Sci 1st year lecturer) is now teaching Javascript and CSS as part of his first year too, and some Javaquery as well? I think so. You can reach him at s.danicic@gold.ac.uk if you want more specifics on that sort of thing. As you're comp sci, a lot of the focus is Java, but in a few disciplines specifically, like algorithmic design in Java, and distributed programming with Java too (writing servers, clients, web crawlers, proxies).

It's always changing year on year, as it's always a battle to keep up with the modern technologies, but the above is a pretty strong outline of what the syllabus would be and what to expect.

[tooosh]

Seems like they're teaching you a list of languages. While I'm sure this makes it useful for industry, the Sussex course is more varied.

[MatureStudentSE1]

(Original post by Vinck)
Sure, so far language wise we've covered:

Processing (graphics/interactive heavy Java stuff), Java (main focus), PHP, SQL, HTML (if you can consider that?), introduction to Object C for iOS and Java for Android (maybe not a language, but we went through entirely the Java specific to android).

I did some theoretical language stuff as a comp sci first year: Hope, etc. Those are more teaching tools though. I know Sebastian (Comp Sci 1st year lecturer) is now teaching Javascript and CSS as part of his first year too, and some Javaquery as well? I think so. You can reach him at s.danicic@gold.ac.uk if you want more specifics on that sort of thing. As you're comp sci, a lot of the focus is Java, but in a few disciplines specifically, like algorithmic design in Java, and distributed programming with Java too (writing servers, clients, web crawlers, proxies).

It's always changing year on year, as it's always a battle to keep up with the modern technologies, but the above is a pretty strong outline of what the syllabus would be and what to expect.

Thanks that's great. I had viewed a youtube video on goldsmiths computer department that had only listed html and css as the programming languages taught. This really worried me. I will email Sebastian. I read your blog last night and watched the video. The still photos with embedded movement look good. I'm going to the open day on the 23rd and am really looking forward to it now

[MatureStudentSE1]

(Original post by tooosh)
Seems like they're teaching you a list of languages. While I'm sure this makes it useful for industry, the Sussex course is more varied.

I have booked for the open day at Sussex on the 16th. Do you have any first hand info from the sussex course ?

[tooosh]

(Original post by MatureStudentSE1)
I have booked for the open day at Sussex on the 16th. Do you have any first hand info from the sussex course ?

No sorry, I don't go to Sussex.

[Vinck]

Anything else you need to know, just shoot. Haha yeah, putting some things I've been playing with but don't let that fool you: I'm one the pure CS types who loves the science/algorithmic side more than being creative at all.

The third year has really good options for that, it's one of the reasons I chose Goldsmiths over a lot of other london unis (and international ones). They have a really awesome AI 3rd year module, and a few others.

Depending on what you're looking for, I think the degrees are pretty good. I've not felt like I've "had to be creative" at any point, which is good because I suck at that, and always took up the technical courseworks/modules.