Lancaster Computer Science Students?

Hi everyone! Hope your day is going well :smile:

To any first, second, or even third or fourth years who are taking Computer Science BSc or MSci, would you mind telling me your experiences and thoughts on the course?

I'm really thinking of applying when it's my time - I've looked on the website, but I just feel I need some first hand accounts. How's the course (Both BSc and MSci)? How are the lecturers? Are the third year specialisation options interesting? What's the campus like?

Thanks all!

Regards,

Asclepius TSR

Reply 1

Asclepius TSR

Cmon, anyone?

Lancaster University

Lancaster

Visit website

Reply 2

Heartland

Bump. Cos I want to know as well.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 3

wideem

I'm first year student and I suggest you to pick different uni. Lancaster is a really bad uni if u want to study computer science. Most of the lecturers are really bad, we have only one programming lecture per week and other modules are really boring and hardly related to programming. Also we have one module where we basically just look at the code without even writing it to computer. So basically we just have to write some code on paper, and nobody doesn't understand what that code means. I have friends who study computer science at different universities and their course seems much more interesting than ours.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

Heartland

Oh that seems bad! If there a particular uni you wished you had gone now?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 5

username1375712

I'm a first year and I'm loving it so far, the lecturers are all decent at explaining the concepts, some of them aren't as engaging as others but they all put detailed powerpoints online so if you don't get something in a lecture you can go over it yourself. I've enjoyed all the coursework so far, the programming is my favourite part but I find the rest fascinating. I'm just having a great time and I can tell the rest of my degree will keep getting more and more interesting once we've covered the basics by the end of this year.

Reply 6

Joshmj

I'm a third year and the course is great, I don't know what the first year above is talking about, writing code on paper and all that... We never did such a thing. As for saying only one module is programming related, you haven't been paying much attention clearly, since we were programming in virtually all our modules and the ones where we weren't programming we were learning about computer science, things like discrete maths, searching & sorting, etc. If you wanted a degree in programming you should've gone to a uni that offered that or gone for something like software engineering, if you want to learn computer science and all that it entails, Lancaster is good for that.

The lecturers are mostly good, no complaints there and most of them do seem to genuinely care about their students. The department itself is a bit of a mess, not particularly well-organised but they do a good enough job 99% of the time, although a few weeks ago there was a piece of coursework set for us third years where they initially removed a section because it was compromised, then they took a while deciding what to do and ended up lumping us with another piece of coursework in the middle of our exam period when we also have to prepare our final year project demonstrations... Pretty sure the guy responsible for that is no longer working here.

All things considered I've had a good experience here so far, most of my friends from college took computer science at similarly ranked universities and all their courses seemed on par or even slightly below what we're getting here at Lancaster.

Reply 7

CSinterest

Couldn't agree more with what [Joshmj] said. The lectures are brilliant and are are well respected in the field. I've just finished my first year with a first and have found myself doing quite a bit of programming for a few of the modules. I think [wideem] seems to think Computer Science is just programming, in which case you should drop out now, and look into doing Software Eng.

As for the comment "write some code on paper, and nobody doesn't understand what that code means.", do you expect all exams and coursework to be done on a computer?, and I think the majority of people understood what the code meant, and if you didn't then you could have looked it up in your own time or asked the lecturers who are very approachable. I have a friend at Cambridge doing the same course and they do even more on paper than I did.

Its a great course at a great university with great lecturers. What more could you want. There are employers who literally want Computer Science students specifically from Lancaster.