64% of UK students studying Computer Science did not study A-level Mathematics...

To get more people to do A Level maths there should be far more capable maths teachers across the board from an earlier age. I went to state school, and only in year 10 did I have a decent maths teacher - this wasn't just my personal opinion as virtually the whole class agreed with me, before him our maths teachers were piss poor. My Year 11 maths teacher (responsible for teaching the last year of the GCSE course) didn't even have a degree!

I had to self teach maths to myself through school and got an A. When I moved to a (more selective) college for A Levels my maths teacher was amazing and I actually liked the subject for the first time.

You were smart for doing that, but imagine how many students, wen't along, hoping things will improve giving the school the benefit of the doubt because they didn't know any better,

I'd the same experience.

I did poorly during primary because most of my teachers were God awful.
When I went to secondary, I got teachers that can teach! I got so motivated that I went to some corner and tried to understand the terms/keywords by myself. I realized after that that I'm not stupid after all and I know the "secrets" of getting them "A" grades



In my own experience, I was just lucky. My mother helped me to get into the better class with the better teachers. Without her changing me to the better class, I wouldn't go to Uni I think lol.

But it's not only in school, crappy educators are everywhere (including university educators) and this will hurt the learners and their future Of course in university education, you're expected to have some level of independence, but that doesn't allow you to become a crappy read-the-slides-no-explain lecturer

To be honest, I don't think any of this would bother me if employers didnt look at UCAS points. For example, right now I would love to apply to Accenture but I can't despite having a good degree mark and wealth of experience relevant to the entry level position that most graduates dont. But because they want 340 UCAS points, it's not going to happen.

Hence - it is a bit of a slap in the face for those students that have worked hard to turn it around. In my case getting a good mark, in a proper degree at a good Uni + a lot of industrial experience.

I would rather employers ask applicants that didnt attend a top 10 Uni to attend one as a masters, than discriminate based on a set of exams which not only have no relevance to the field they are trying to get into; but was done at a time where other factors could have affected their marks (in the manner you have described) or better still set their own exams at entry level. That way they can automatically filter out people themselves.

By the way - you are right , a levels are all exam techniques. Im sure if I sat Alevel ict now, I would get an A* easily.

To be honest, I don't think any of this would bother me if employers didnt look at UCAS points. For example, right now I would love to apply to Accenture but I can't despite having a good degree mark and wealth of experience relevant to the entry level position that most graduates dont. But because they want 340 UCAS points, it's not going to happen.

Hence - it is a bit of a slap in the face for those students that have worked hard to turn it around. In my case getting a good mark, in a proper degree at a good Uni + a lot of industrial experience.

I would rather employers ask applicants that didnt attend a top 10 Uni to attend one as a masters, than discriminate based on a set of exams which not only have no relevance to the field they are trying to get into; but was done at a time where other factors could have affected their marks (in the manner you have described) or better still set their own exams at entry level. That way they can automatically filter out people themselves.

By the way - you are right , a levels are all exam techniques. Im sure if I sat Alevel ict now, I would get an A* easily.

I bet those who set these requirements are people who:
(1)Got good grades even during primary - probably never know the meaning of the word "overcoming the struggles of academia", thus everyone has to be like them.
(2)Snobs from the top unis who see highly of themselves and their unis (good God have I seen them...)
(3)Pretentious git

What's the point of putting UCAS points anyway!? That's ancient history...



Ha. Me too.

I was out for a jog just now and a thought came into my mind; I think during school, some teachers tend to say "X subject is hard", thus making X "seemed" hard to some students (and demotivate them) but in reality if the teachers just suck it up and teach well, it wouldn't be hard...

Hi, it's actually quite a sad state of affairs really because your degree should be of more importance than any of your other qualifications, I mean I'm sure you have to talk about jobs/experiences you had that were the most recent, not those you had 5+ years ago & also what you get from A levels is academic skills which are obvs overtaken by a degree & as well as this like you said it is just really unfair as there is just so much of a big gap b/w individuals and their educational experiences when they were younger it's shocking. Seriously though, there is a lot of competition but that should be no reason for setting unfair requirements which'll put certain people who are more than capable at a disadvantage right from the start & not even give them a chance.

Ok that was a rant but it annoys me that people like you and many others who are so hard working and have the right skills are not even given a chance due to a some exams they took when they were a teenager, I mean if A levels are that important that by not having the right UCAS points rules you out from the beginning why do they even hire graduates then? Sure there's a lot of people applying for these jobs but seriously there's probably more fair and more accurate ways to choose between applicants because really is there going to be a difference in the skills of an applicant who has the correct UCAS points than one who doesn't?

Anyway Good Luck with your career and I hope that one day you're able to fulfil your ambitions.

I agree with everything here. And it is the only thing that puts me off from doing a masters at Warwick or somewhere, because - what is the point?

A masters is no good without experience, catch 22.

The rich on the other hand will be going to the likes of Oxford and walking into jobs. Many also don't have to go through grad schemes, I have heard many cases of rich people getting their kids in via nepotism, "Daddy has the right contacts" etc.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/06/05/james-caan-continues-to-deny-nepotism-as-he-launches-recruitment-campaign-with-nick-clegg-3829246/

Mate, I was in a job interview a few weeks ago (mobile development job). Unfortunately, I don't have the required mobile development skills or experience that are required by them but I've there on my resume, "PhD to be completed in..."; the interviewer just skimmed through it I've also listed my publications and the interviewer asked, "so what is this?"

So far out of 20+ job apps, only one got interested with my postgrad work

Owh, noze, noze, noze. There's no nepotism there!
Good God, out of millions of qualified people, your two effin daughters are the most qualified? Of course there's NO nepotism there!

In my country, people who apply for any company does not add their A-levels because companies do not care. It's a waste of CV space. They also don't care about your degree, as long as you can get the job done. Usual screening process is a written test for interns, then 3-5 interviews, then personality test(I doubt their validity especially MBTI one) and then you receive the decision in 1-3 days. Quite cool system. Also, you can get in without any coding experience too but you must know a guy in a company who would be eager to train you. Which is cool thing. You can learn coding in real environment which is a lot more stimulating than home or uni.

Also some companies in my city organize monthly courses in PHP for aspiring youngsters to enter workforce without uni if they want. They claim it is better way to find talent because they work hard and do not have a piece of paper to show off.

To be honest, I have accepted it.

I am either going to break in as an experienced hire, or through an entry level position for a sensible corp that doesn't ask for UCAS points. (they exist - IBM is one). Again the fact that I am able to think outside of the box is testament to my ability.

And there are better ways of screening applicants, these corps are too lazy to think outside of the box and do it (the irony). They should do a similar system to Cambridge and Oxford with their STEP exams. i.e. get a 2.1 or above, and sit our exams.

Exactly. You also have to take into account age; I think a full time Phd is about 3-4 years; if you get to your late 20s with no work exp. You will be screwed for exactly this reason.

In your case, if you haven't already, freelance. Build a portfolio.

Odesk.
Elance.

etc

And use that as a form of work experience.

Dude, I get what you're saying but recruitment costs companies millions of pounds every year. The UCAS filter is a very easy way to remove weak candidates who attend less respectable institutions and it is extremely cost effective. Why do they need to look at 20,000 applicants when they could just look at 5,000 applicants by using a UCAS filter? It's very easy to implement, it ensures they still get their quality as well as their numbers and all round, it's a winner for them because it saves HR costs.

I'm very fortunate; I've already built a portfolio whilst doing undergrad work
But I'm lacking the current ones e.g. mobile android development : /

Because those weak applicants you mentioned can be a stronger more reliable candidate. Do these "respectable institutions" teach the development skills you needed?

It's going to be even more costly to rehire a new employee if you've chosen the wrong one isn't it?

Sure, which is why freelancing is a great way to build it.

Ah, yes. Sorry. Missed that one

I just got myself an android phone, installed the SDK and now tampering with some tutorials to start learning the basics of the environment and framework. I'm planning to develop an app and I'm going to give myself a month to develop and optimize it; reasonable ya?
I think it's a good investment don't you think?

The CS within me is still alive

Granted, not all of those attending less reputable universities will be weaker than those attending the more established universities. But companies simply can't afford to open a door to every single university graduate in the UK. Imagine if IBM, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, PwC, EY, Deloitte, KPMG and BP all had a requirement of CCC and a 2.1 in any degree subject.

They could now receive over 250,000 applications each. There needs to be a way to differentiate and ultimately some won't make this cut. But there's no need to be downhearted about it. You often learn more quickly in smaller firms with a greater amount of responsibility and ultimately, you can one day move to one of the market leaders as an experienced hire.

Companies can't scrutinize every single course or computing course in the UK to check its specification. The companies have history. They know which universities produce good graduates and they target them. They haven't started recruiting yesterday. Even if those at better universities simply learn more theory, they've seen from the past that these same academically gifted students are able to learn practical application very quickly too.

But I do take on board the unfairness in the recruitment process at the bigger firms. It's the reality of there being so many graduates today and they need an efficient and quick way to dwindle down the numbers to make it more manageable for interviews and assessment centres.

Three main topics will be covered:

1. Introduction to formal languages: finite-state machines, regular expressions, Kleene's theorem, pushdown automata, context-free languages.

2. Introductory statistics for computing: Probability, Combinations, Permutations, Bayes' rule; the noisy channel model; principles of descriptive and inferential statistics; principles of hypothesis testing (null hypothesis, type-1 and type-2 errors, etc).

3. Topics in logic and set theory, including and introduction to predicate logic; the cardinality of Infinite sets; Cantor's diagonal argument; simple abstract applications to computability.

Throughout the course, there will be an emphasis on proof methods, including methods such as proof by mathematical induction, and proof by contradiction.

2 one-hour lectures and one 1-hour tutorial per week.

1st Attempt: 2-hour written exam (75%).
Continuous assessment, consisting of maths problems (25%)

Resit: 2-hour written exam (75%). The continuous assessment mark will be carried forward. (25%)

Formative Assessment and Feedback Information

Marked coursework will be returned to students within 2 weeks of submission. Consequently, this will play a role as formative (as well as summative) asessment.

Marked coursework will be returned to students. Further explanations will be offered in class.

Off topic, but I remember you saying about that meeting with your boss.
Did it go okay?

Dude, I get what you're saying but recruitment costs companies millions of pounds every year. The UCAS filter is a very easy way to remove weak candidates who attend less respectable institutions and it is extremely cost effective. Why do they need to look at 20,000 applicants when they could just look at 5,000 applicants by using a UCAS filter? It's very easy to implement, it ensures they still get their quality as well as their numbers and all round, it's a winner for them because it saves HR costs.

If you've got this industrial experience, why bother with graduates schemes. You will find experienced hire positions open if you have the correct experience. You say you're against Nepotism but it will always exist and there's nothing anyone can do about it. We will always try to help our own blood. 70% of job vacancies aren't advertised; these are spread through word of mouth. The likelihood is that everyone will get at least one job in their lifetime where they're got a job through contacts, particularly in the higher earning sectors. Will you turn down a job if a manager offered you something just like that? Because he's seen you fit something he's looking for? If not, you can't be so against nepotism because taking a job without having competition to other candidates is just as unfair and inefficient as a job being given to a relative.