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computer science exams and coursework

HI TSR

I'm a new member and I will be starting university soon and wanted to know how much coursework (essays, assignment etc) was involved and also how difficult is it to achieve a first in the coursework.

I also wanted to know how hard the exams were and how many you have to take at the end of the year.

Any help is appreciated

Thanks

bump

Original post by ABC603

I will be starting university soon

Would you mind stating which one? Based on whether it is a Russell university significantly determines the difficulty of the course.

Original post by ABC603

and wanted to know how much coursework (essays, assignment etc) was involved and also how difficult is it to achieve a first in the coursework.

I also wanted to know how hard the exams were and how many you have to take at the end of the year.

I attend a Russell group university, so I will base my argument on that.

The difficulty of a course in these types of universities depend on your mathematical background. As a first year student, I had an intense amount of assignments, in particular, my first semester. Massive piece of advice: November is the tightest date for deadlines for any university. I believe I had a total of around 8 assignments just for that month that was due in.

I have a total of 7 exams this year, and I will say this: revise. Revise early. When I left my exams to the last month in the first semester, it was an utter mess if you're trying to aim for a first with so much content to revise.

Most assignments in the first semester are simple and primarily based on little prior knowledge. However, having a strong mathematical background will help you interpret and understand the content much quickly.

The exams are as difficult as you make them. Students with AAA in mathematics has done worse than students with GCSE in maths who have put in 100% more revision than those students - however, this changes university by university.I would admit that the first semester was definitely worse for coursework, and the second semester is worse for exams, for me anyway.

Reply 3

Async

It all different across different universities. However to be able to get firsts, it is recommend you master programming.

Reply 4

ABC603

Original post by Baleroc

Would you mind stating which one? Based on whether it is a Russell university significantly determines the difficulty of the course.

I attend a Russell group university, so I will base my argument on that.

The difficulty of a course in these types of universities depend on your mathematical background. As a first year student, I had an intense amount of assignments, in particular, my first semester. Massive piece of advice: November is the tightest date for deadlines for any university. I believe I had a total of around 8 assignments just for that month that was due in.

I have a total of 7 exams this year, and I will say this: revise. Revise early. When I left my exams to the last month in the first semester, it was an utter mess if you're trying to aim for a first with so much content to revise.

Most assignments in the first semester are simple and primarily based on little prior knowledge. However, having a strong mathematical background will help you interpret and understand the content much quickly.

The exams are as difficult as you make them. Students with AAA in mathematics has done worse than students with GCSE in maths who have put in 100% more revision than those students - however, this changes university by university.I would admit that the first semester was definitely worse for coursework, and the second semester is worse for exams, for me anyway.

Thanks for the reply,

I am thinking of attending Kings College and have applied to Aston, Reading, Queen Mary and Portmouth. I didn't study A-Levels so I will be at a disadvantage because I haven't done exams for 2 years however I will definitely be willing to put the work in to get the best possible grade.

With regards to the assignments, I am not the best writer which is why I created this thread. I wanted to know if style of writing is as important as the content, how long (word length) the essays are and how much research (reading books/articles) is needed before starting one.

Before starting university, what books would you recommend I read to give me an understanding of mathematics?

What are the exams questions like? Do the questions require you to do calculations? write mini-programs? complete a program? or do you have to do a mini essay?

Thanks in advance

Reply 5

ABC603

Original post by Async

It all different across different universities. However to be able to get firsts, it is recommend you master programming.

What programming language would you recommend? I have heard that Java is a good language to learn and I am currently learning it.

Reply 6

Async

Original post by ABC603

What programming language would you recommend? I have heard that Java is a good language to learn and I am currently learning it.

Depends what languages your university will be teaching you. Though most universities love Java and C++, so it's most likely that learning Java will be very helpful. C# is good too.
To be honest, once you've learnt a language like C# or Java. You pretty much know every other programming language out there.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 7

ABC603

Original post by Async

Yup, I'm really enjoying Java. I think the universities that I have applied to do Java first year and C++ second year; I will definitely give C++ a go once I excel at Java.

Reply 8

Baleroc

Original post by ABC603

With regards to the assignments, I am not the best writer which is why I created this thread. I wanted to know if style of writing is as important as the content, how long (word length) the essays are and how much research (reading books/articles) is needed before starting one.

Absolutely. Writing style is important. I will give you a heads up to prepare for university: check out LaTeX. Most univerisities require you to write reports using this ridiculous software package. It is overwhelming at first, especially compared to the difficulty of Microsoft Word.

Secondly, you are marked based on the vocabulary and academic writing style. For example, if you write: I am going to speak about ....; you will receive maybe 1 or 2 marks for academic writing. Compared to: After discussing x and y, the next section will discuss z. This is called signposting, and you will be marked on this. The corrected sentence should receive the top 9/10 marks for academic writing style, that is what you should be writing. No personal pronouns, and it has to be concise.

Thirdly, most essays are written under a strict 2000 word essay, allowing up to 99 words over (2099) with a 3 mark deduction for each subsequent 100 words. You will have to write some form or report at some point at university. It is best to do it early on to recognise your mistakes since it is the third year that proposes a majority of the marks for your degree classification.

Research is based on the topic. Generally you look around 6 hours of research first for a specific question, collate it, remove that is irrelevant then create the report. Six hours is a guidance and changes constantly, it is important to note it depends on the topic you are researching.

Original post by ABC603

Before starting university, what books would you recommend I read to give me an understanding of mathematics?

I would suggest not to read these books until you start the course, otherwise you will confuse yourself even further until it is explained. I would recommend researching Discrete Mathematics and its applications. Most "good", in my opinion, computer science courses, has Discrete Mathematics as a topic in the first year, or at least a form of it.

Original post by ABC603

What are the exams questions like? Do the questions require you to do calculations? write mini-programs? complete a program? or do you have to do a mini essay?

This, again, varies. My first semester examinations were all multiple choice questions (MCQ) you are given little to prepare except from class tests, so make good use of them, and lecture notes. The reason being that there is only a limited amount of questions, and effectively, the same questions from the lecture notes can come up in the exam - as they did for me. So it is useful to revise the examples the lecturer gives.

My second semester has around three which are non-MCQ that mean they are completely made up questions unique to that exam - at least I think they are, as I have not seen a recurring question on any non-MCQ exam.

With regards to programs, you will have to write pseudo code - which you may not yet be familiar with unless you study Computing A-Level. You have to write this form of code in the exam, hoping that it works. The pseudo code would be written to be compiled if it was in Visual Studio, or any other compiler software. So if you were deducted marks for the pseudo code, it would mean it would not work as intended as the question asks if you ran the same code in Visual Studio, as an example.

I hope this cleared up your questions.