Oxford or Imperial for Computer Science?

Hi Im presuming if you are realistically ' torn' between Oxford and Imperial for computer science than you will be or have got reasonably high grades equvalent to AAA at A Level. I would imagine that course quality would be be similar at both universities. Oxford and Imperial are both highly ranked universities. Oxford has a admissions test for computer science. http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/admissions/ugrad/Details_of_the_Aptitude_test

Its Ultimately up to you. There are wiki's for oxford university and Imperial college. Searching google should prove effective. You could also visit both universities to inform your decision. Is there any aspect of the university experience in particular you are torn between?

hey,
I'm a 3rd year at Oxford, and I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have about the course or the university, but bear in mind that I don't know anything about the imperial course, and very little about any other courses so I can't really make comparisons.

I've really enjoyed my time at oxford, and am planning to do the fourth year, as are most of the people I know on the course. My biggest concern with the course is that some of the courses are too easy, and I feel that we could have been pushed more at times, but I really don't know how this compares to the Imperial course.

FH

Oohh I have an offer for comp sci from Imperial too! As do like another 10 people on TSR (join the Imperial offers thread on the Imperial forum).

I'm a bit biased but Imperial > oxford because it's in London Also the course is perfect, especially if you're going for the MEng, you get that industrial placement which usually leads to a guaranteed job! I mean that should be an incentive!

However, Oxford does come prestige attached and isn't their offer lower than Imperial? Oxford is doing AAA but Imperial is doing A*AAA.

Anyhow I'd pick Imperial!

I know about the industrial placement, it's definitely a plus, also that many Imperial graduates will go on and work in London. However, I doubt Oxford graduates with the same degree will have difficulties finding equivalent jobs.. why Oxford awards a BA for 3 years Computer Science is however a mystery to me
Congrats on your offer btw and well I'm not from the UK, I'm an EU applicant, so the 2 unis ask 90% overall in my Bac.
I don't know the A-levels system very well but A*AAA sounds really heavy though

Oxford awards a BA for a 3 year computer science course? Defo pick Imperial then It's an Engineering degree as well so it should put you in a good position if you want to work internationally.

Hey there,
wow I'm really surprised to hear that, what do you mean with "some of the courses are too easy"? is it that the courses don't go into depth and that you would like to learn more about a certain topic but don't have the possibility to do so or what do you mean? It surprises me a lot because most Oxonians say that they crack under the workload no matter what course they're doing and are pushed way too hard, so that's what I was expecting or maybe you're just insanely bright
Also I've heard (not sure if it's true though) that many Oxford CompSci graduates go into research or further studies, so how well does the degree prepare one for future jobs for instance in industries or in commerce? and in software development? because this seems to be a strong point of the Imperial course.

Oxford awards a BA for any 3 year course, It doesn't do any other type of Bachelors.

Yeah I was pretty suprised as well. I'm not sure exactly what I mean by too easy, and bear in mind that this will be affected by the fact i just had a relatively easy term (the coming term I'll have about twice as much to do). Some of the subject matter of the courses is pretty intuitive, and I just feel that too much time is spent on this. Also sometimes material is repeated in different modules, this is pretty inevitable when you have optional modules but can still get a bit annoying. I would still highly recommend Oxford to anyone who expresses an interest, and would stress that I have really enjoyed my time, and have learned a lot.

Do you mind telling me which college you're in? and do other compsci students you know feel the same way about the degree?
and thanks for the reply

Oxford is an enigma for Computer Science. Despite the supposed Oxford prestige I have yet to come across an Oxford Compsci student in any of my internships (investment banking), either in applications or during the actual internships. Similarly I don't know anyone doing the course, and all my friends have experienced the same thing - in that Oxford compscis seem to keep themselves to themselves and their studies. I don't know whether this is because Oxford doesn't have the same mentality as Imperial in job applications re: internships etc or whether everyone goes into academia, or if the typical Oxford compsci student is just simply ****e.

The comment from fat_hampster is intriguing. Certainly I at Imperial have never felt that any course is 'too easy' or that we haven't been stretched. Career prospects, especially for technical roles in London are much much better. For example 60-70% of last year's summer internship intake for Technology in a certain European investment bank was from Imperial Computing. Another couple were from Cambridge but there weren't any Oxford at all.

I know a few people at oxford who have had internships at various technology firms, but I don't think I know of anyone who's done anything in the financial sector, so it could just be that we apply for different types of jobs. Most of the people on my course at my college don't seem to be very career focused, and I'm unaware of anyone else at my college who is applying for internships for the summer.

I've not had much success with my applications, having only got past the first round of interviews once, though I have always been given at least a telephone interview before being rejected. I guess at the same time I haven't applied to that many positions. Also I suspect that my lack of success is a lot down to me rather than the course at Oxford specifically, I don't find programming that interesting, and this probably shows in interviews (which have mostly been for jobs that would involve programming, as I don't know what else to do).

I would be interested to find out more about the course at Imperial if you have the time to give me a quick run down of the important modules, as I have no idea how the Oxford course compares to others.


FH

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/computing/teaching/undergraduate/computing/meng-regulations/meng-regulations-1

From that list, in the first and second years - the really annoying modules are:
Reasoning about Programs - this builds upon the stuff that was taught in the Logic course in the first term and so if you're not a master of that you struggle with this.
Networks & Comms - there is so much material you have to learn it's unbelievable
Compilers - because the lecturer really screwed us over with the exam - out of a set of around 2000 slides, around 30% of the marks in his exam were based on one obscure slide buried deep in it.

Algorithms - lots of important concepts but too little time.

For 3rd and 4th year you choose what you want to do - but the compulsory group project in the 3rd year and individual project in 4th year are really time intensive.

Both the first and second year are unbelievably intense - every Monday evening I was programming til midnight to get the week's programing assignment in before the deadline.

But now I'm at the end of the group project it's almost a relief because from here on out it's relatively laid back til April when we start our 6 month industrial placements.

Hope that helps

Oxford is an enigma for Computer Science. Despite the supposed Oxford prestige I have yet to come across an Oxford Compsci student in any of my internships (investment banking), either in applications or during the actual internships. Similarly I don't know anyone doing the course, and all my friends have experienced the same thing - in that Oxford compscis seem to keep themselves to themselves and their studies. I don't know whether this is because Oxford doesn't have the same mentality as Imperial in job applications re: internships etc or whether everyone goes into academia, or if the typical Oxford compsci student is just simply ****e.

The comment from fat_hampster is intriguing. Certainly I at Imperial have never felt that any course is 'too easy' or that we haven't been stretched. Career prospects, especially for technical roles in London are much much better. For example 60-70% of last year's summer internship intake for Technology in a certain European investment bank was from Imperial Computing. Another couple were from Cambridge but there weren't any Oxford at all.

Cheers,

The material covered seems similar, especially in the first year. I think we cover most of what you do in reasoning about programs in other courses, and we also have algorithms and probability in first year, but we don't do any databases or operating systems in first year (actually I haven't done them at all). We also don't have professional practice or computing topics, but they sound like they're pretty unimportant.

in 2nd year most of our courses are optional, but we do have similar modules to you to choose from.

I don't think the imperial course covers significantly more, but by the sound of it you probably do quite a lot more programming, which is fairly time consuming. Additionally I've generally tried to avoid modules which are heavily programming oriented, and I'm even doing a 3rd year project which looks like it will be program free.

OP, I hope this post helps you to understand the difference between the unis. Imperial is probably better for programming careers, especially in London, but Oxford will also look great on your CV, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. You should also consider whether you want to live in London or not during your degree.

FH

Maybe it also has to do with the fact that there are simply fewer computer science students at Oxford, I mean Oxford has a yearly intake of mere 21 students, so I guess it's more that they're rarer to find than them keeping to theirselves?



I'm really surprised that you're not keen on programming but still find your course too easy.. just think that's kinda weird imagined you to be someone who has been doing loads of self-teaching so that you already know everything that's yet to be taught
I think sunspoon has an interesting point though, is it so that Oxford CompSci graduates tend to go onto further studies, research and teaching and only few go on to work in commerce, banking and industries? because I feel that most Imperial graduates are heading in the latter direction.

And thank you guys so much for all of your replies definitely gives me a better insight maybe I'll end up flipping a coin