some questions about cognitive science (BSC/MA) programme

I am from another Russell group university studying computer science. I found that my original school is too focusing on engineering not science so i try to transfer to Edinburgh studying cognitive science.

But I cannot find too much information about cog sci in the internet(very weird, no information in tsr/quora and other unis which also offer this course)

here is my question:
1.what is the biggest difference between the BSC in informatics and MA in PPL?
2. I chose this course because I want something "hard core" and want to focus on NLP/AI. Is this a good choice to transfer to cog sci? should I stay in computer science?
3. What else can I do if I graduate from cog sci course except doing a master/PhD in this area?

Thanks for your reading!

If AI/NLP are your fields of interest, then Edinburgh is a good place to be.

You'll get quite a bit of overlap with Informatics and CogSci in the first and second-year at least. I'm not so sure after that, but you can check the modules yourself (http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/19-20/dpt/drps_inf.htm)

Hi I know your post was about a year ago but I'm in a similar position at the moment and can't find much information about it. I'm studying EEE just now at another Russell group so not really from a comp sci background but I'm thinking of transferring to Edinburgh for their Cognitive Science course too because of my shift of interest towards AI and biologically-inspired computing. I'd like to ask what the process was like of transferring (did they require any specific grades from you/accept your previous uni grades) and how are you finding the course so far?

Hi I know your post was about a year ago but I'm in a similar position at the moment and can't find much information about it. I'm studying EEE just now at another Russell group so not really from a comp sci background but I'm thinking of transferring to Edinburgh for their Cognitive Science course too because of my shift of interest towards AI and biologically-inspired computing. I'd like to ask what the process was like of transferring (did they require any specific grades from you/accept your previous uni grades) and how are you finding the course so far?

CogSci programme is not too much focusing on neuro-computation. It is more about psychology and linguistics and philosophy, bascally more abstract study of human brain (and more humanity perspective).
If you are keen to do some neuroscience, you will be disappointed. (maybe the AICS programme is more suit for you in this case.)

Courses are basically fine but the first two years of the studies are more introduction of this area rather than 'hard-core' courses. Most of great courses are offered in year3 and year4 in the honour programme.

The final result of my previous study in the other Russell university is like 80 out of 100, ranked top5% (passed with distinction in year1). The selection in informatics department is quite competitive but again it is considered on a case-by-case basis so it is hard to say what is the specific requirement.

If you have further questions, do not hesitate to ask :）

Ah I see, thank you for replying. I was told I could potentially transfer to the Electronics and Software Engineering course in my uni but they're making me go back to first year (currently about to go into second year with EEE) so I thought I might as well find something that has a lot more AI and neuroscience in it than ESE does. But from how you described the Edinburgh CogSci program so far, although I'm really interested in philosophy too, it might not give me the skills I want to acquire specifically for what I want to work on.

Your advice on doing masters on neuro computation might not be so bad, since ESE will give me fundamental skills in programming and electronics (from what you said I take it CogCci places heavy emphasis on 'humanities' kind of subjects maybe a little bit more than 'stem' areas?) and then the neuroscience knowledge might be a bit easier to pick up compared to trying to pick up programming concepts and coding well for a masters course. If its not too personal, and if you know what it is, can I ask what you want line of work you want to pursue after your Cognitive Science degree?

Ah I see, thank you for replying. I was told I could potentially transfer to the Electronics and Software Engineering course in my uni but they're making me go back to first year (currently about to go into second year with EEE) so I thought I might as well find something that has a lot more AI and neuroscience in it than ESE does. But from how you described the Edinburgh CogSci program so far, although I'm really interested in philosophy too, it might not give me the skills I want to acquire specifically for what I want to work on.

Your advice on doing masters on neuro computation might not be so bad, since ESE will give me fundamental skills in programming and electronics (from what you said I take it CogCci places heavy emphasis on 'humanities' kind of subjects maybe a little bit more than 'stem' areas?) and then the neuroscience knowledge might be a bit easier to pick up compared to trying to pick up programming concepts and coding well for a masters course. If its not too personal, and if you know what it is, can I ask what you want line of work you want to pursue after your Cognitive Science degree?

I wanna do a phd and pursue an academic job.
CogSci is a progamme offered by department of psychology,linguistics and informatics, it basically discuss questions like what is mind, what is knowledge and what are the representations of knowledge and could we use rules to represents knowledge, what is the mechanism of learning; what is language, how can humans understand the meaning of sentences. It is much more abstract area so it is not what you think.

If you wanna do a compuatational neurosciece, you'd better transfer to Edinburgh's AI programme. Or you can come to UCL (They are best in this area) /Edinburgh/Oxbridge later for master.

If you do come to Edinburgh, please contact me, I will buy a cup of coffee for you :-)

I looked into Edinburgh's Informatics masters and so far seems quite suited to me, and a lot of other masters they offer from the informatics department. I'm currently at Glasgow uni and I think its the same here where the first couple of years are more generalised courses and the more specialised courses that I wanna do like biophysics and AI are in later years. I'm gonna email Edinburgh if they're still gonna consider applications for transfer to their AI or informatics undergrad courses since final deadline is June 30th but realistically, I highly doubt they will sadly - doing my masters there seems a lot more probable.

My best friend is actually going to Edinburgh to do Linguistics and Anthropology and I've asked her if I could sneak into her lectures (might 'accidentally' stumble into some informatics lectures too....) and the library (your libraries there just look so nice....) whenever I come up haha! Might see you around!

http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/20-21/dpt/utcogscbs.htm

Here is the course structure. We do learn data structure/machine learning/Haskell/some math, but on the other hand, we will learn a lot like linguistics/tech of speech/psychology analysis/even philosophy

you can have a look in here(they published everything online and can be viewed by anyone):

https://groups.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/cogsci/course/

For the master programme, please have a look about level 11 courses below:
http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/20-21/dpt/cx_sb_infr.htm
or look more detail here:
https://course.inf.ed.ac.uk/

these information are better than a thousand words :-)

Did you study in Edinburgh? I have started and I didn't expect how informatics based the course is and I wasn't prepared for it and starting to rethink my options due to it. I was really excited for the course but my informatics work outweighs the amount of work I have in my other subjects and Its already stressful and not so enjoyable as I had thought and I enjoyed higher psychology more honestly. Will this last the first year and get better eventually or was this not the right course for me?