My sister is planning MSc CompSci conversion with no math and humanities bachelor AMA

Conversion degrees are exactly that. They convert your skills as a graduate towards learning in a new discipline.*

Bear in mind that not all languages are heavy on maths. Ruby, for instance, uses very naturalistic syntax. But also bear in mind that a conversion course will take into account the background of the people they're taking on when designing their curriculum. A BSc in computer science will be designed for people with maths A level. A conversion course will be pitched differently, designed for people with basic graduate skills.
*
Don't get me wrong, I know not everyone is cut out for the subject they convert to. On my psychology conversion course an art graduate dropped out after failing her first essay because she realised she was completely unsuited to it. But regardless of your perception of your sister's skills, have a little faith in the course design.*
*

If she's not good at math, she's definitely going to struggle with any software engineering, as it is just that; engineering.

There is a lot of maths involved, especially when you look at jobs in industry. The maths is also embedded deeply into Java/C++, I don't know if you know that most of GCSE/A Level Maths consists of algorithms, like calculus, algebra, etc. They're made from the same kind of maths as computer science is in a very broad sense. Of course there are software jobs you can get which don't involve any maths or anything, except those don't nearly pay as much as the graduate SE ones do (where basic software jobs are just above minimum wage, and graduate SE jobs normally pay around £60k starting).

You need to have very rigorous skills in problem solving to even be good at programming, she needs to ask herself if this sounds like her.

There's also a lot of hardware engineering in Computer Science, which relates more to Physics, and you need to see if she's any good at that.

Please let us know what she decides and how she gets on, if you can?

If she's not good at math, she's definitely going to struggle with any software engineering, as it is just that; engineering.

There is a lot of maths involved, especially when you look at jobs in industry. The maths is also embedded deeply into Java/C++, I don't know if you know that most of GCSE/A Level Maths consists of algorithms, like calculus, algebra, etc. They're made from the same kind of maths as computer science is in a very broad sense. Of course there are software jobs you can get which don't involve any maths or anything, except those don't nearly pay as much as the graduate SE ones do (where basic software jobs are just above minimum wage, and graduate SE jobs normally pay around £60k starting).

You need to have very rigorous skills in problem solving to even be good at programming, she needs to ask herself if this sounds like her.

There's also a lot of hardware engineering in Computer Science, which relates more to Physics, and you need to see if she's any good at that.

[video="youtube;5jmN_tBS0t4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jmN_tBS0t4[/video]

My sister believes all of these videos. To what extent are they reliable?

Somewhat reliable, I wouldn't say you should bank her future on them though, they are also shot in America, where jobs and the CS ecosystem is very different to how it is internationally. Computer Science is taught very differently in the US, I think only Imperial College in the UK comes close to how the US like to teach it.

Never believe the absolute lie that you can do computer science without maths. It's completely ambiguous and while its not possible to do computer science without maths, you don't have to be good at maths to do computer science. You just have to be very hard working, and you have to enjoy solving problems, otherwise you end up demotivating yourself naturally.

By hardworking I'm saying she'll probably have to spend 5-6 full hours every single day working on her maths until she's caught up with everyone else, if she manages to catch up. Now she can skip bits she doesn't need, such as most of A Level Mechanics, most of A Level Stats, some of A Level Decision and some of A Level Core.

Most courses require a grade B in GCSE Maths so your sister's maths ability should be fine.

I think the question of how much maths she requires depends greatly on which modules she picks on the given course, if she picks neural networks - I would imagine the most mathematical route then be ready for the multi variable calculus / linear algebra and stats.

Edit: managed to find a lecture from bham for the
Introduction to Neural Computation
: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~jxb/INC/l5.pdf which is a module that can be selected http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/internal/programmes/2016/0008/years/1

Keep in mind that whole module could be replaced with another that has very little maths content.

Hope that helps.

Judging by her academic profile the kind of 'Computer Science' MSc your sister might find accessible would be unlikely to confer any competitive advantage over and above her existing 'top six' degree, and almost certainly wouldn't be rigorous enough to justify its price of admission in preference to a specific, industry-standard qualification—such as Oracle, Prince2 or Sage—which is what I would personally advise her to pursue rather than simply accruing yet more expensive, meaningless letters after her surname.

Likewise, there are a myriad courses and certifications catering to the wider spectrum of office-based 'IT' competencies (e.g. Excel) which aren't as mathematically intensive as CompSci, and if she just wants to learn how to code, she can effectively teach herself.

It is me who needs some questions answered, especially from STEM and CompSci people / people already in programming or other IT jobs, but you can also ask me anything.

To keep this short and concise: I have a sister who has just graduated from a top 6 universities in the UK with 2:1 in a very soft subject.

She is planning to do masters straight away and holds a number of offers. Among these are offers for further soft subjects in Ivy League in the US (but when I say soft, I mean soft - like cultural studies), some MSc from business schools - like HR, and then she has those offers for MSc Computer Science from Bristol and Birmingham or Kent (I forgot) all of which are available and accessible to people such as she.

Now, I want my sister not to be a loser. I want her to be self-reliant, strong and independent. She is, however, bad at math. She is somewhere between the Grade B GCSE mathematics and grade C AS level. I must be honest - I don't know whether she is just not very motivated or simply not capable of doing it. I personally had to work very hard on math.

Is Computer Science conversion worth it in her case? She spoke to couple of admissions tutors / lecturers and they said maths is not really necessary in those courses and that you can do many full or semi-IT jobs with little to no math.

What do you think? What about things like Java, C++, can you do that without math? I don't think so. Software engineering sounds like discrete math, and hardware = a lot of physics / electrical engineering.

Judging by her academic profile the kind of 'Computer Science' MSc your sister might find accessible would be unlikely to confer any competitive advantage over and above her existing 'top six' degree, and almost certainly wouldn't be rigorous enough to justify its price of admission in preference to a specific, industry-standard qualification—such as Oracle, Prince2 or Sage—which is what I would personally advise her to pursue rather than simply accruing yet more expensive, meaningless letters after her surname.

Likewise, there are a myriad courses and certifications catering to the wider spectrum of office-based 'IT' competencies (e.g. Excel) which aren't as mathematically intensive as CompSci, and if she just wants to learn how to code, she can effectively teach herself.

On the other hand (I wanted to PM you with this, but your email box is full):

Would you not say, however, that giving her soft humanities background, the MSc in CompSci will in itself be a huge boost to her employability? For example, a guy just posted in the thread being convinced that you absolutely must have beyond A level math to complete these programmes. The employers in semi-IT jobs, such as banking, or consulting jobs requiring VBA in Excel etc, may be more willing to take her on board.What do you think?Or would you instead recommend her continuing with her humanities education in Ivy League and combining this with the programmes you have mentioned, like Oracle, Google etc.

Thank you for that point of view but remember this is only about the MSc conversion courses. The question still remains whether or not she would be able to successfully complete any of these with her math level:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/study/postgrad/taught/5055/
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/taught/computer-science/computer-science.aspx
https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/243/computer-science
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/2016/eng/msc-computer-science/

What do you think? The way I see this now is that if she could manage to complete any of these, it's worth it in the long term. She can always develop and improve skills such as Java Programming later at her own pace, the important fact will be the MSc CompSci on her CV. This is especially so in the light of her very soft humanities background. Even if she will not be able to do actual IT jobs, like the software engineering you have mentioned, do you think this will be a boost for her potential career in semi-IT roles in banking, accounting or even marketing? I think it probably will be useful, giving the fact that 50% of graduate jobs require some advanced IT skills, like VBA for Excel. What kind of jobs would she be most likely able to get with that MSc? Do you think this is the right route to choose, or would you instead recommend business school?

It was on the basis of the conversion course, if she took a more convention route, ie undergraduate degree in computer science, it would be far less difficult. Like the other people in this thread have stated, these conversion courses, regardless of what the tutors say, are designed for people from quantitative backgrounds, not people who struggle to understand basic mathematical concepts like the ones found in A Level/GCSE.

To answer you question simply put, its all down to how much work she's going to put in, she can't just take this course and come out as a Computer Science graduate at the end. It will take A LOT of work, and you need to decide if this is possible from her.

With the MSc, its dependent on her skill set at the end, it's not dependent on her ability to have the MSc to put on her CV. She needs to be able to demonstrate competency in the technical skills that any job mentions. It needs to be clearly visible on her CV that she's right for the job otherwise they won't even give her a chance. At interview and assessment stage, she needs to actually perform too, not just talk about, and this is another difficult part that you need to consider. Having learnt everything, will she be able to perform, will she be able to create that spreadsheet in VBA under time pressure, or will she just result to her textbooks?

Going down the business school route is a lot more reliable for people from soft backgrounds. It locks her out of decent tech jobs though, which is worth thinking about, whereas you could get most business jobs without much formal education at all.

On the other hand (I wanted to PM you with this, but your email box is full):

Would you not say, however, that giving her soft humanities background, the MSc in CompSci will in itself be a huge boost to her employability? For example, a guy just posted in the thread being convinced that you absolutely must have beyond A level math to complete these programmes. The employers in semi-IT jobs, such as banking, or consulting jobs requiring VBA in Excel etc, may be more willing to take her on board.What do you think?Or would you instead recommend her continuing with her humanities education in Ivy League and combining this with the programmes you have mentioned, like Oracle, Google etc.

Now, I want my sister not to be a loser. I want her to be self-reliant, strong and independent.

She is, however, bad at math. She is somewhere between the Grade B GCSE mathematics and grade C AS level. I must be honest - I don't know whether she is just not very motivated or simply not capable of doing it. I personally had to work very hard on math.

Is Computer Science conversion worth it in her case? She spoke to couple of admissions tutors / lecturers and they said maths is not really necessary in those courses and that you can do many full or semi-IT jobs with little to no math.

What do you think? What about things like Java, C++, can you do that without math? I don't think so.

Software engineering sounds like discrete math, and hardware = a lot of physics / electrical engineering.

The fundamental problem here is that your sister is less numerically adept than I am, and I would sooner take a hot bath with a cold razor than endure even one semester of an 'employable' computing course. Naturally, shoring up decent non-STEM credentials—such as your sister currently holds—with a postgraduate qualification that included software engineering and data analysis would showcase rare intellectual breadth if she could excel, but since she ostensibly loathes maths and VBA/spreadsheets is hardly the sole preserve of esoteric scholarly research, 'liberal arts prestige' combined with assiduous networking and a portfolio of 'hard' skills in the aforementioned key areas would seem a more viable approach.