Review of the Computer Science course at City University London.

Let me start with a summary if you're planning to get a good job and do well in your future choose a better university.

I will be focusing on the course curriculum and the lecturers because arguably this is what is most important in a university.

City University London is very scared of failing students and they actively try to bring most people to at least a pass or above. How do they do that? By helping struggling students and spending more time on their module content? NO! They make their modules easier and easier every year because otherwise if students do badly, the university statistics will be hurt and fewer people will apply, which of course means less money… Hurray capitalism.

For the first year, we learnt the basics of most stuff and I was happy. I was learning new stuff, sometimes it was hard but it was generally pretty easy, no surprise there it was only the first year and our grades weren’t counted towards our degree. Then comes the second year…

Year 2, I was eager to study expecting much harder modules that will need so much work in order to do well. I was very wrong, year 2 was arguably easier than the first, we are still learning many different things from computer science, but we’re just covering the basics. THAT IS IT. Just some basic stuff about the things we need to be learning, when I google for something I don’t know and see the kind of questions students in different universities around the world ask, makes me feel like an idiot and not learning anything. In other places, they seem to be doing actual computer science with a lot of maths involved, not here though, here it is just simple theory you can learn for a couple of days before the exam and still get a first. Also if you did well in the first year, you will be punished in the second year, for the group project instead of letting you choose your own group they pair the people with highest grades with the people with the lowest grades. If you did badly then you are awarded by getting 1 or 2 smart people in your group who will do most of the work for you because of how bad you are… They told us they had a year where they let people form their own group but it had a high fail rate, but it also had the highest scores ever seen in the module. Nice, sabotaging our grades so that the majority can do mediocre. It is the final term of year 2 and there are still people who can’t even write a single line of code… We learnt some interesting maths for computer science in year 1 (mainly set theory, probability, graphs etc.) in year 2 maths is nowhere to be seen. I stopped attending lectures because honestly they’re not needed if you spend a few days studying before the exam you are guaranteed a first.

The worst module of them all is PDIT, it means professional development in IT, guess what, it has nothing to do with IT, they teach you how to write cover letters and how to speak in interviews… It is worth as much as the other modules and it is clearly meant as a module to boost your grade.

I’ve attached the mock exam for Data Structures and Algorithms and the actual exam for Programming in C++, they’re both year 2 modules and while they might look complicated for someone not doing Computer Science trust me these exams are very, very basic. The programming one especially is just an exam for very basic syntax, we already had one like this it was in year 1 but in Java… City University is a scam, they make their modules easy to skew statistics in their favour.

The last thing I want to add is about the lecturers, they have absolutely 0 motivation except for the ones from year 1 and I think that was because they were lecture assistants and not actual lecturers. They were great, universities should stop hiring researchers to do their teaching because while they might be very knowledgeable they suck at teaching.

In before this gets deleted by a city university moderator. Which reminds me, when they ask for our feedback, they send us an email 40 minutes before a “feedback event” where you go and fill your feedback “anonymously”. Is that how you manage your student satisfaction? Most people are too far away to be able to come in 40 minutes time…

@UWS what do you think?

City University London is very scared of failing students and they actively try to bring most people to at least a pass or above. How do they do that? By helping struggling students and spending more time on their module content? NO! They make their modules easier and easier every year because otherwise if students do badly, the university statistics will be hurt and fewer people will apply, which of course means less money… Hurray capitalism.

For the first year, we learnt the basics of most stuff and I was happy. I was learning new stuff, sometimes it was hard but it was generally pretty easy, no surprise there it was only the first year and our grades weren’t counted towards our degree. Then comes the second year…

Year 2, I was eager to study expecting much harder modules that will need so much work in order to do well. I was very wrong, year 2 was arguably easier than the first, we are still learning many different things from computer science, but we’re just covering the basics.

THAT IS IT. Just some basic stuff about the things we need to be learning, when I google for something I don’t know and see the kind of questions students in different universities around the world ask, makes me feel like an idiot and not learning anything. In other places, they seem to be doing actual computer science with a lot of maths involved, not here though, here it is just simple theory you can learn for a couple of days before the exam and still get a first.

Also if you did well in the first year, you will be punished in the second year, for the group project instead of letting you choose your own group they pair the people with highest grades with the people with the lowest grades. If you did badly then you are awarded by getting 1 or 2 smart people in your group who will do most of the work for you because of how bad you are…

They told us they had a year where they let people form their own group but it had a high fail rate, but it also had the highest scores ever seen in the module. Nice, sabotaging our grades so that the majority can do mediocre. It is the final term of year 2 and there are still people who can’t even write a single line of code… We learnt some interesting maths for computer science in year 1 (mainly set theory, probability, graphs etc.) in year 2 maths is nowhere to be seen. I stopped attending lectures because honestly they’re not needed if you spend a few days studying before the exam you are guaranteed a first.

The worst module of them all is PDIT, it means professional development in IT, guess what, it has nothing to do with IT, they teach you how to write cover letters and how to speak in interviews… It is worth as much as the other modules and it is clearly meant as a module to boost your grade.

I’ve attached the mock exam for Data Structures and Algorithms (open books) which is usually a very hard part of computer science and the actual exam for Programming in C++, they’re both year 2 modules and while they might look complicated for someone not doing Computer Science trust me these exams are very, very basic. The programming one especially is just an exam for very basic syntax, we already had one like this it was in year 1 but in Java… City University is a scam, they make their modules easy to skew statistics in their favour.

The last thing I want to add is about the lecturers, they have absolutely 0 motivation except for the ones from year 1 and I think that was because they were lecture assistants and not actual lecturers. They were great, universities should stop hiring researchers to do their teaching because while they might be very knowledgeable they suck at teaching.

I did read it all, and I agree with what you said. I'm still studying, currently in 2nd year and our second term modules are language processors, operating systems and the double group project module is now squeezed in term 2 (not sure if it was that way before). Kind of depressing there is no change in year 3, I'm only planning to do summer internship so no placements for me.

Did city university hurt your employability? You mentioned you hated computer science, was that caused by your experiences at City? Are you currently working something involved with programming and if not, do you consider yourself hire-able with the stuff you learnt at City for a good enough company?

I'm just too worried I will leave university as a jack of all trades, master of none and no respectable-ish company will hire me.

The double module group project was spread across both semesters when I was in year 2

I 100% recommend a placement year. It will help your employability a lot for when you graduate. Also, it will help make your final year a lot more easier as the 2 lowest scoring modules are replaced by it. Find out if this is still the case though.

I'm working right now, I have a job at Sky but I'll be leaving to do my master's course later this year. I hated City mainly because of the people on the course, the social life at the university and how depressing it was aesthetically (it looks like a council flat).

I would say I am employable but I'm not the most technical person, I don't believe that is due to City itself but mainly because my heart lies with other aspects of IT and not programming. I would say if I could do another job, I would, but I'll be sticking here until I do my master's. I'm going to be doing Human-Computer Interaction.

Do the placement year, you'll learn a lot while on there and you'll discover things about yourself that you may not have known. Learn as much as you can on the course, do extra reading and don't rely on lecturers too much. The course was at a bare minimum though you may find Theory of Computation more of a challenge (year 3 core module). It may get better so just keep going. Keep in mind City is known for their high graduate rates for getting a job, you'll be fine.

The double module group project was spread across both semesters when I was in year 2

I 100% recommend a placement year. It will help your employability a lot for when you graduate. Also, it will help make your final year a lot more easier as the 2 lowest scoring modules are replaced by it. Find out if this is still the case though.

I'm working right now, I have a job at Sky but I'll be leaving to do my master's course later this year. I hated City mainly because of the people on the course, the social life at the university and how depressing it was aesthetically (it looks like a council flat).

I would say I am employable but I'm not the most technical person, I don't believe that is due to City itself but mainly because my heart lies with other aspects of IT and not programming. I would say if I could do another job, I would, but I'll be sticking here until I do my master's. I'm going to be doing Human-Computer Interaction.

Do the placement year, you'll learn a lot while on there and you'll discover things about yourself that you may not have known. Learn as much as you can on the course, do extra reading and don't rely on lecturers too much. The course was at a bare minimum though you may find Theory of Computation more of a challenge (year 3 core module). It may get better so just keep going. Keep in mind City is known for their high graduate rates for getting a job, you'll be fine.