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The Quad, Middlesex University
Middlesex University
London

Computing at Middlesex University

Hi I'm Vicki and I am a BSc Business Information Systems student as well a the Course Ambassador for the following courses:

- Computer Communication and Networks
- Computer Systems Engineering
- Mobile Systems and Communication Engineering
- Business Information Systems
- Computer Forensics
- Computer Networks
- Computer Science
- Information Technology

I'm available to help answer any questions that you have regarding any of the Middlesex Computing courses or about the University in general from a students perspective.

Vicki
Middlesex Course Ambassador
Computing

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Reply 1
Below are some of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) related to the computing courses. If you do have any other questions, please feel free to ask them.

Where does teaching take place?
All of the teaching takes place in the Hendon campus. For the computing courses, most of the teaching takes place in the College Building, Hatchcroft or the Ritterman Building.

Are the computing courses examined via exams or coursework?
Most of the computing courses are examined via both coursework as well and exams. The ratio for coursework and exam is usually 60:40. However this could differ for each of the subjects. It is advisable to check on the MDX website and go on the course page to check for the particular course.

How can I contact the course leader?
If you go on the Middlesex website and search for the course you are interested in, if you go to the course page, on the right hand side of the page, you would see the name of the course leader. If you click on the name, it will lead you to a page where all the contact details will be provided.

How does a placement year work and do I get any support from the university?
In most of the computing courses, you have the option to go on a yearlong placement between your second and third year of your study. This is also known as in industrial placement. If you need any support on how to find a placement, you can visit the employability centre situated in the College Building. You can also email them your C.V or a cover letter and they can review these and let you know how you can improve them.

What student Accommodation is available?
Based at our Hendon campus, the Accommodation team is on hand to offer you help and advice on finding suitable accommodation. Our professional staff will also be able to deal with any issues concerning contracts and financial matters relating to halls of residence. Contact the Accommodation office by email [email protected] or call +44 (0)20 8411 6121. The Halls of Residence which we have available are Unite Olympic Way, Platt Hall, Usher Hall, Ivy Hall and Writtle House.

What are lectures and seminars like?
You would generally have a one hour lecture for each of the modules and a two hour seminar for each of the modules. In the lecture, the lecturer would have a slideshow and would present the topic for the week and give you relevant information. In the seminar, you would put the information learnt in the lecture into practise. You would generally have worksheets or tasks to be completed in the seminar. These would help you to complete your assignments or even form a major part of your assignment.

How many days will I have to attend University?
This will depend on the course and the modules which you will be studying, but you will most likely have to attend university for three or four days. In the days when you have free time, you are expected to complete your assignments or revise for exams.

Can I change my timetable?
Once you are given your timetable and you feel you want to make changes to your timetable, you will be able to do that in the first two weeks from when the course starts. This can be done on the online portal names Unihub. You will be able to make changes to seminar timings and choose from other seminar slots available. Lecture timings cannot be changed.

Where can I access Lecture Notes, Module Handbook, Timetable etc.?
Once you enrol, you will be given login details to our Middlesex Online Portal named Unihub. In Unihub, you can access all of the Lecture Notes, Lecture Slides, Module Handbook, Assignment Details as well as any other relevant information or documents regarding the course. It is through Unihub where you can also submit your assignments. Your timetable and university email can also be accessed through Unihub.

How do I know which books to buy?
When you begin your course, your will be given a Reading List which will consist of the essential books you need to have hold of. It is not necessary to purchase them as most of them are available in the library. If they are not available in the library then can purchase the book. It is not necessary to purchase a brand new book, which would be expensive. Most of the essential reading books are also available as free e-books from which certain sections can be printed.

Will I be given any support if I cannot catch up with the work?
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are not being able to catch up with you work and are falling behind in your studies, there will be various forms of help provided to you.
- You can contact your module leader or programme leader and see if they can give you any extra help or extend deadlines (only if a valid reason is provided.) Each academics will provide you with their out of office contact details and also give you a time when they are available for you to meet them if you have any questions or queries.
- In many modules, you may have SLAs (Student Learning Assistants) or GAA (Graduate Academic Assistants) who come in seminars to help you with your work and also guise you how to complete your assignments. SLAs are current students who have completed the module successfully previously and GAAs are graduates who have graduated in the same course previously.
- The Learning Enhancement Team is also there to help you get assistance with your assignments. This can be from helping provide a structure for assignments to have the assignment proof read.
(edited 7 years ago)
The Quad, Middlesex University
Middlesex University
London
Reply 2
Hi everyone!

Before you start the course, I will be keeping you guys up to date on what a typical week looks like during term time. This week I have spent most of my time preparing for coursework deadlines. Six weeks have gone past since the term has started and it is time for us to start submitting our first pieces of assignments for the modules. As I have two pieces of assignments due next week, I have prepared for the formative submissions. Formative submissions are when we show drafts of our work to the tutors for feedback before we submit our final assessment. Along with completing the pieces of coursework, I have also been preparing for an interview, which I will be conducting along with my fellow group members. For one of the modules, we have been asked to interview an organisation and get information about their Information Systems. We have been able to secure an interview with John Lewis and a lot of our time this week has been dedicated to prepare questions to be asked at the interview. Being able to secure an interview with such a big organisation is a very big thing and I'm looking forward to the interview.

I will be keeping you updated to other exciting things I do whilst studying this course.

Vicki Mehta
Computing Course Ambassador
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 3
Hi Everyone! This week has been one of the busy weeks during term time when deadlines for assessments start approaching. Being in my third year, I will have to submit a dissertation this year, along with other assignments for other modules. This week I have two deadlines. One of the deadlines this week is for the Research Proposal for the dissertation. The research proposal is all the planning which is done for the dissertation. Whilst studying in university, it is very important to plan your work and make a list of resources which you would be needing before you start the work. The other deadline I have this week is for a Literature Review. A Literature Review is when you do research about a particular topic and write up your findings. But this is not as easy as you need to use various sorts of sources and also reference each of the sources in Harvard Referencing style. Don’t know what referencing is? Don’t worry, referencing is when you write down where you got each piece on information from for your research. This has to be done in an academic style which is often taught to you in your first year. At Middlesex University, the library helps you out and also has an online tool called 'Summon' where you could search for different sources for the particular topic. These sources could be from Books, Article Journals, Newspaper articles, websites, statistics etc. Summon doesn’t only help find the resources, but also helps you reference the source as well in the style which you want. Summon has been really helpful whilst completing my Literature Review and the Project Proposal. This week has been quite a stressful week with more than one deadlines on the same day, but after the first year of university, you would be quite used to it. This was pretty much all I've been doing this week apart from attending the usual lectures and seminars.

Vicki
Middlesex Course Ambassador
Computing
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 4
Hi Everyone!

As I did mention last week, last week was a very busy week with two coursework submissions. Both were individual coursework and both were completed and submitted on time. Another important event which took place last week was our visit to the John Lewis Head Office. As part of one of our coursework which is due in December, we needed to contact an organisation to find out about their CRM strategies. CRM means communication relationship management, and this is one of the important aspects of an organisation and their relationship with their customers. Our group decided to contact John Lewis and they happily agreed and invited us to their head office which is based in Victoria Street. It was an hour long interview, where the met the manager who dealt with the CRM. We asked a lot of question on how they make use of Information Technology and also how technology affects their organisation. Going to such a professional environment and see how they work was totally a remarkable experience and very inspirational as well. After the meeting with John Lewis, we wrote down all the information which was given to us and also collaborated all the notes which we all took, so when writing our report, we have all the information ready. Along with our interview, other tasks we prepared for was our coursework which would be due in December. A computing student does have a lot of coursework deadlines, so it is wise to make sure you know when your deadlines are so you are prepared for all of them and don’t miss any.

Vicki
Middlesex Course Ambassador
Computing
Reply 5
Hi Everyone!

In this post I will be telling you about what I have been doing course relates as well as work related. As well as being a student and a course ambassador at the university, I also work in the University as a student ambassador. My job is to promote not only my University, but also Higher Education. This week, in addition to the usual lectures and seminars, I was working at the Undergraduate Open Day which we had last Saturday. This is a chance for prospective students to visit the university, take a look our campus, meet tutors and lectures and also know a bit about the courses which we offer. It was a really busy day with a lot of prospective students and their parents coming in. Being a student, I would really advise you, if you are looking to apply for university next year, to go to open days, as it will give you a real feel of what it is like to study at the University. On the studies side, this week I visited one of the STEP talks. STEP talks are Science & Technology Employability Presentations which are organised by our module leader. Different organisations are invited to give a talk about skills and qualities needed to be recruited and opportunities available for computing students. This time, we had Exponential-e to come and give us a talk about placements and jobs which they have to offer to our students. This is very vital as in addition to your studies, you should also be thinking about what you would be doing once you graduate or whether you want to do a placement year or not. By visiting the talk, I got to know a lot about the organisation and their recruitment process.

Vicki
Middlesex Course Ambassador
Computing
Reply 6
Hi Everyone!

The countdown for Christmas has finally begun, and with that all the deadlines have started to come closer. At the end of the term, I have two deadlines for two different modules, so this week has been spend on getting formative feedback. As mentioned earlier, the formative feedback is the feedback we get on the drafts of work we produce, so we can receive feedback and improve for the final submission. One of the coursework which is due, is the coursework based on John Lewis, for which we went to the John Lewis headquarters. Once this coursework finishes for this module, we will be starting preparing for our presentation. Currently, alongside with getting feedback on our coursework, our module leader is also going through what we will be doing for our presentations which will take place after Christmas. We will be doing our presentations in the Model Farmhouse which is a research and knowledge centre based within the campus. We were taken on a tour to the this area of the campus and were shown the rooms where we will be having our meeting and presentation. Our first presentation will be a mock presentation which will be filmed. The video would be given to use with feedback so during our final presentations, we would have an improved version of the presentation. This is all for this week.

Vicki
Middlesex Course Ambassador
Computing
Reply 7
Hi Everyone!

So here we are in the final week of the term. Only one coursework in due, which will be due during Christmas. As I mentioned last week that we will be doing mock presentation, this week we actually did our presentation. We were taken the Model Farmhouse, which is a building within the Hendon Campus and this was the place where we did presentation. In order to help carry out a research, our planning was monitored. During our planning time, we were monitored with web cams and sensors to monitor changes in our body whilst discussing our presentation. These findings would be used to see how people behave while coming to a consensus for a project. Once our planning was done, we did our presentation, which was to last for 60 to 90 seconds. In the presentation, our group presented what we have been doing for the coursework which we have been working on.
Reply 8
Hey,
I'm curious about IB requirements for computer science course. It doesn't say on the website...
Hi Everyone!

This is one of the most important weeks of the year. Although it is Christmas Holidays, there are still few important things taking place this week. Firstly we have a deadline for one of our coursework. It is highly unlikely that you would have a coursework deadline during the holidays, but our tutor wanted to give us more feedback before our final submission, hence he would be giving us feedback on our final draft, and after a few days we will submitting our final draft. We will also be receiving our grades for the research proposal for our dissertation and also a Literature Review which I did on Professional, Ethical and Social Issues of Cloud Computing.

Vicki Mehta
Course Ambassador
Computing
Hi Everyone! Wishing all of you a Happy New Year!
After submitting the final assignment for 2016, there is finally some break from work and time to relax. There is some preparation which I have been doing related to work. This week I have been preparing for the Literature Review for my Dissertation. For the Literature Review, I have been going through the various literature which is available for me to study and analyse. Luckily I can access a lot of sources through the University online portal called summon. From home I am able to make a list of sources which I will be using for the Literature Review. Once we start university next week, we will be told about our next assignments.

Vicki Mehta Course Ambassador Computing
Hi Everyone!

So this was the first week of the term and it has been a very busy week so far. In all the modules, we have been given the outline of how this term will be shaping up. We have been informed of our upcoming assignments and deadlines. The most recent deadline which I have coming up is for the Literature Review for my dissertation. For this I have been reviewing and analysing lots of different sorts of literature from different sorts of sources. I have got lots of books from the Shepherds Library which is in our Hendon Campus and also getting lots of sources from the internet. Apart from this work, we also have been getting feedback on the presentations which we will be presenting after two weeks. The mock presentation which we did before Christmas in the Smart Lab was recorded by the SLAs and is now given back to us so we could go through it and see what went well and how we could improve the work.

Vicki
Middlesex Course Ambassador
Computing
Reply 13
Hi I was just wondering how many people study computer science at Middlesex I'm currently at a2 and am looking forward to studying computer science at Middlesex and what are the ratio between males and females just curious :smile:
Original post by 5park1er
Hi I was just wondering how many people study computer science at Middlesex I'm currently at a2 and am looking forward to studying computer science at Middlesex and what are the ratio between males and females just curious :smile:


Hi. I dont have the exact numbers or ratio, but I'll find out and let you know.
Vicki
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 15
Original post by Vicki at MDX
Hi. I dont have the exact numbers or ratio, but I'll find out and let you know.
Vicki


Thank you
Hi Everyone!

It's been a very busy start of term last week and this week was also very buys. We have been receiving our grades for assignments which we've submitted before Christmas. This has been very nerve wracking and as well as very exciting at the same time. This week I have a deadline for the literature review of my dissertation. I have been surfing through various websites and books to find the appropriate information needed for my work. Hopefully the work assignment is done on time and could be submitted on time as well. We also had a mock presentation this week for a presentation which is going to be assessed and has 10% value for that module. Luckily our tutor had gone through our slides and presentation and given us feedback on how to improve the presentation. We presented the mock presentation in front of our class after which we got other feedback too. Next week, we will be doing our actual presentation. Luckily this will not be in front of the class, but only in front of our tutor.

Vicki
Course Ambassador
Computing
Hi,

I dont know if you can help me out here but I applied for a standard Computer Science degree but when I checked on the Middlesex website at my application (as UCAS tracker is currently down for maintenance) and I have been given a unconditional offer for CompSci with a foundation year, why did this happen?
Hi Everyone

This week has been very quiet as last week one of my assignments was submitted, so there is a lot of relief. Last week we had the opportunity to use the technology of Google Glass. The Google Glass was used to take pictures of work done individually in our group assignment. It was a very good experience, when we were wearing the Google glass, we were given instructions on how to take images and videos of what we are seeing and is in front of us. This week we did a group presentation which was regarding the work which have done in a coursework submitted before Christmas. The presentation went well and we have received positive feedback from our lecturer.

Vicki
Course Ambassador
Computing
Hi Vicky,
Just had a small question.
The time of Bsc IT lectures & seminars, I meant how many days do we attend Uni is it it 2 days, 3 days or 5 days a week.
And does the lectures and seminar start from early morning like 9am or it differs.
Please kindly give me an approximate idea of the timings.
Thanks

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