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Fisrt Year Comp Science - What will I need to buy?

Hi All.

I start my first year in Computer Science on Monday. For those that have done the course what would I need to buy in terms of material to enable me to complete the first year?

Im guessing books, but I have my own personal collection of books (C, C++, Java etc) and I have countless amounts of ebooks, all up to date.

Will I need to buy a server or anything like that? Or pay for anything on the course?

Love some feedback.

Reply 1

Psyk

16

A pen when it comes to exam time. A decent calculator would be useful too.

All you need will be the standard uni stuff. CS doesn't really have any special requirements.

Reply 2

-Em-

2

A pen and paper. Course texts if you prefer not to use the library. Don't bring all of your books unless you're certain that you'll reference them.

Reply 3

Slick 'n' Shady

15

Dont wast your money on a 'top of the range laptop'. You wont use it in lectures and where there are labs etc, you will be using the colleges desktops which are more than good enough.

Last year students at my uni bought £1000+ laptops for no reason...

Reply 4

Cazzi

12

yeh just a basic computer and printer, pen, plenty of paper, calculator (although ive yet to use one!)

Although i do recommend bringing an old computer to play with, learn how to network/use new OS's with etc. - this is more for background learning, not essential, but a good idea

Reply 5

Exopaladin

2

All I'm planning to take is some pens, some paper (won't need a ton as I hate writing stuff on paper due to my ghastly handwriting), and various computer equipment.

Whether you need a calculator or not may depend partly on your uni, I've heard that they tend to provide you with them for exams at mine anyway, so I shouldn't really need one.

Reply 6

fresherfresher

Don't forget. You will have access to discounted software on arrival. Your institution should point you in the right direction.

Reply 7

-Em-

2

fresherfresher

Don't forget. You will have access to discounted software on arrival. Your institution should point you in the right direction.

What would you actually need?

Apart from EDA tools (for which F/OSS alternatives exist), our entire first year was taught using Free/Open Source software.

Reply 8

insainet

Slick 'n' Shady

Dont wast your money on a 'top of the range laptop'. You wont use it in lectures and where there are labs etc, you will be using the colleges desktops which are more than good enough.

Last year students at my uni bought £1000+ laptops for no reason...

Perhaps they bought it to play decent games or use graphic softwares :s-smilie:

Reply 9

Floofy

11

Slick 'n' Shady

Last year students at my uni bought £1000+ laptops for no reason...

I won't be making that mistake then. Thanks for the heads up.

Reply 10

Apocalypte

12

Pens, paper, calculator, suitably-sized supply of caffeine products...

Some form of computer too - even from the point of view of messing around with various OSes. Something like an EEEPC is fine tbh if you want something for playing around with.

(I'm in final year, and my list is basically stationery, laptop and Red Bull...)

Reply 11

fresherfresher

-Em-

What would you actually need?

Apart from EDA tools (for which F/OSS alternatives exist), our entire first year was taught using Free/Open Source software.

That's a matter of personal preference. I would always revert to running FOSS software, however, there are those who may wish to look at commercial IDE along with that great productivity suite known as Microsoft Office. Please note, that is not endorsement of that application.

Reply 12

WelshBluebird

16

For those who want to use commercial software, MS are giving students a load of stuff for free through their "DreamSpark" initiative.
https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Default.aspx

Reply 13

osamab

11

hey WelshBluebird, what do i do when i get to the authentication point?

Reply 14

jermaindefoe

15

WelshBluebird

For those who want to use commercial software, MS are giving students a load of stuff for free through their "DreamSpark" initiative.
https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Default.aspx

yeh dont they do msdn acadmic alliance too, thats what we had last year at college, free copys of vista, xp, access and stuff

Reply 15

WelshBluebird

16

osamab

hey WelshBluebird, what do i do when i get to the authentication point?

if you select university of bath, it should take you to a bath uni page, where you sign in using your BUCS username and password, and then it'll take you back to the MS page to download the stuff.

And yeah, I noticed something on the BUCS site about the MSDN thing. Hope so. Will be quite cool to have lol.

Fisrt Year Comp Science - What will I need to buy?

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