Computing interview at Imperial

I didn't understand what the hell he was on about. I'm so glad he's not my personal tutor!

Hi !
I've got an interview on 3rd March for JMC...
but I don't have any knowledge in computing at all.
I only do maths in high school (I'm from France).
Do you think it is a problem ?
I am going to work on my personal statement, and to learn the english scientific vocabulary, but I don't know if it will be enough (I've read in your answers that i will be asked some questions about computer scence...)
Thank you, and good luck to everybody =)

Don't do JMC, it will ruin your life (and it will make you hate Maths).

He's just jealous.

I thought this at the beginning. Now I'm extremely glad I'm on JMC, Computing is so god dry right now. I can say that, even without doing Hardware and Databases. Easy or not, they're boring. At this time, maths is is very interesting, and makes far more sense. Never thought I'd hear myself say that

We're no longer doing Hardware

and soon you'll be missing out on Operating Systems

and Discrete Maths II.

Your loss really - Iain Phillips is an amazing lecturer

(And Databases is really quite good).

I have an interview for Computing on 3rd March This is actually the first I've heard from any unis I've applied to (apart from acknowledgements), so I'm really pleasantly surprised. Just out of curiosity, are there any statistics on how many of those who are interviewed get an offer?

I have an interview for electronic engineering on the same day.
I'm unsure whether I would like Computing better, should i mention this on the day, talk about it to the interviewer etc or will i just look like a noob?
PS I've already applied for mechanical engineering at imperial so my uncertainty will already be known by them

So it seems you don't really care what you study. As long as it is at Imperial.. haha. At least I hope you would have a good response to that after applying to so many courses.

Maybe you have another reason though, for example, all 3 courses have something you like? Uncertainty is not a good thing to take with you into an interview. You're going to be studying one course for the next 3||4 years, you should make sure it is something you are interested in.

In an interview, you should say WHY you think a particular course will be fun for you (so you get an offer/you really should have a reason) and you should ask about the things which differentiate the courses so you yourself can be clear about the choice you would like to make.

What roughly do you guys do in computing as apposed to elec eng? from what i understand computing is mostly coding with theory to optimise processing, whereas eee is much more hardware and physicsy based.

Is it possible to switch onto the computing course a few weeks into the year if i felt it was more my thing? or would they be really annoyed, no places left or whatever

I suppose i should try to get the offer then see how it goes.

I think you're still in programming mode

Imo, you have to choose whatever course you like the most; do a bit more research and ask questions to current students.
That's just my 0.02 £

So do you think I should talk it through with them on the day, is it even possible to switch over to the computing department???
I dunno about other subjects but 3rd march is the last interview day so i couldn't be given another day...
this is tricky, should I email them, this might make it worse though

You didn't apply to computing, didn't you?
I'm afraid that changing from EEE to Computing would be hard (two different courses and two different departments). Especially at this stage of the admissions process.
But if you have doubts about what the course involves then talk to them.
Just out of curiosity, which aspects of computing/EEE do you like the most?? Do have any specific interests within the subjects?

I think you're still in programming mode

Anyway, crazedmonkey09, it's up to you. Personally, I wouldn't demonstrate uncertainty at the interview, however you should make the decision as to whatever feels right.

I suppose i should try to get the offer then see how it goes.
I do have many interests and this is what has made my decision so damn hard, I really do wanna go to imperial, at least thats a positive side effect!
What roughly do you guys do in computing as apposed to elec eng? from what i understand computing is mostly coding with theory to optimise processing, whereas eee is much more hardware and physicsy based.
Is it possible to switch onto the computing course a few weeks into the year if i felt it was more my thing? or would they be really annoyed, no places left or whatever

I hear there is this wonderful course called ISE. It has courses from the EEE dept and also the Computing dept. Perhaps it is too late for you to apply to this (maybe you can ask if you can actually choose this?) but it seems to me that's what you're really looking for.

In DoC, you have a hardware course, architecture, compilers.. but this is still, as you identified, mostly software and theory. The software side can get very low level, but I feel that you more want to be an EEE person.

To give you an idea of what you can do with a Computing degree, I have friends who write compilers for FPGAs (http://www.maxeler.com/) and you can take a look at the pages of the following lecturers:

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~phjk/
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~oskar/
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~wl/
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~dfg/ (teaches 1st year Hardware)

Studying in Computing will (we hope) give you a stronger foundation in programming, so will still be important when you need to program how a piece of hardware will work.