Ask a Current Computer Science Student

Original post by shadowdweller

Hello, folks,

I'm shadowdweller, and I studied Computer Science for 3 years, with an additional year in industry. Myself and a few others are ger to answer whatever questions you may have about studying Computer Science and related courses :biggrin:

If you have any questions please post them here, and tag @shadowdweller, @Princepieman, @Tommy Vercetti, and @Acsel and we'll do our best to answer it for you!

Not sure how to tag people? Simply type @ followed by each of the usernames, or copy and paste the following into yout post: [noparse]@shadowdweller @Princepieman @Tommy Vercetti @Acsel[/noparse] :yep:

Add me to the list too :biggrin:

What did you find most enjoyable on your course? What was the most challenging?

Reply 2

bensharpe

7

Do you think the industrial year was worth it, or should I go straight to the final year? Also where did you go for your placement? Thanks

Reply 3

OP

Original post by UWS

Add me to the list too :biggrin:

What did you find most enjoyable on your course? What was the most challenging?

I’ve added you now :smile:

I absolutely loved the programming modules, and the flexibility the project based modules had. In both cases you had a set goal you needed to achieve, or conditions you needed to meet, but how you got there was generally on you. I really enjoyed the problem solving aspects, and the satisfaction of actually getting them done.

In terms of most challenging, I think I’d say time management over any module in particular; most of the issues with actual modules was because I procrastinated on them around other deadlines or coursework, rather than them actually being as difficult as it initially seemed. From an actual module perspective, the AI module was probably most challenging because it was so different to the rest of the course, and there was a lot of new information to get your head around!

Original post by bensharpe

Do you think the industrial year was worth it, or should I go straight to the final year? Also where did you go for your placement? Thanks

I honestly can’t recommend an industrial year enough! You gain so much experience from it, which is really valuable for after university, especially if you don’t have any other role relevant work experience. When I did interviews for my current graduate scheme, a lot of my answers drew on situations I’d come across on the job, or work I’d done there - you can use university in those situations too, but work is a lot more directly relevant.

Aside from the employment benefit, I also found that it put a lot of my course teachings into perspective; there were some concepts that were taught that I hadn’t needed in the course yet, or that it was hard to see the relevance of, but a lot of them were put into practice whilst I was working, and I think that was a real benefit going back into 3rd year.

I went to E.ON for my placement, and worked as a Software Developer. For me, there wasn’t an equivalent graduate role to apply to, but like Ascel mentioned, there are sometimes opportunities to return to the same workplace after you graduate; E.ON for instance, had a fast track application process for those who had done a year in industry with them.

Reply 4

ScribbleDribble

13

How many hours of self study did you put in per week for first year? thanks

Reply 5

gcsediva

11

Thanks for starting this thread.

Can you all give a brief intro as to where are you studying (or have studied).

We all know the Uni ranking sites, however can you give some information where one gets the ' value for money' for students of 2018 onwards, mainly type and quality of teaching, CS is dynamic so where is better tutors.

Original post by shadowdweller

Hello, folks,

I'm shadowdweller, and I studied Computer Science for 3 years, with an additional year in industry. Myself and a few others are ger to answer whatever questions you may have about studying Computer Science and related courses :biggrin:

If you have any questions please post them here, and tag @shadowdweller, @Princepieman, @Tommy Vercetti, @UWS and @Acsel and we'll do our best to answer it for you!

Not sure how to tag people? Simply type @ followed by each of the usernames, or copy and paste the following into yout post: [noparse]@shadowdweller @Princepieman @Tommy Vercetti @UWS @Acsel[/noparse] :yep:

Reply 6

UWS

Original post by ScribbleDribble

How many hours of self study did you put in per week for first year? thanks

I would say 2-3 hours per module, that includes assignments and self-learning.

Reply 7

BadProgrammer

7

How mathematically intensive would you say the course was?

Reply 8

winterscoming

19

Original post by bensharpe

Do you think the industrial year was worth it, or should I go straight to the final year? Also where did you go for your placement? Thanks

From my point of view the Industrial placement was by far the most worthwhile part of my entire course (Software Engineering at Staffs Uni). Same as @shadowdweller really - I found myself learning far more just on the placement alone than in the whole of the first 2 years of the degree put together, and it gave a lot of perspective which really helped in making some of the things I'd been studying at uni to make more sense.

It's very difficult as a student sitting in lectures/workshops to learn how to apply your programming skills to real-world problems; particularly where developers frequently spend much of their time working with huge legacy codebases, 3rd party tools and systems, and have to manage the expectations of real customers/clients who aren't very good at understanding their own requirements. It's also difficult at university to get any real insight about the usefulness of common development tools, or see how various software development lifecycles/methodologies are really used, and it's hard for universities to really emulate the experience of working in a project team with other developers, testers, analysts, a project manager, etc.

I had a 12-month software engineering placement at an insurance software company - it was a lot of hard work, challenging, and very enjoyable. They offered me a permanent job toward the end, so I took that offer instead of returning to finish the degree. That ended up being the right thing for me to do at the time because I'd lost all interest in academic study, although I really wouldn't necessarily suggest that it's a good idea for most people, and I don't think it happens very often anyway. It's usually much better to finish the degree course because it looks better to finish things than to abandon them halfway through, and the time spent on making a good final-year project really helps in interviews too.

Reply 9

OP

@Princepieman @Tommy Vercetti

Original post by ScribbleDribble

How many hours of self study did you put in per week for first year? thanks

I'd probably agree with UWS on this, and say 2 - 3 hours per module; my situation was slightly different as I'd covered a lot of first year content already, however, so I'll defer to the others slightly on this question :smile:

Reply 10

OP

Original post by BadProgrammer

How mathematically intensive would you say the course was?

For my course there was usually one dedicated maths module per year, plus a small amount of maths content in a couple of other modules. It was largely discrete mathematics (So D1/D2 if you studied A-level Maths), and you didn't need to be from a mathematical background to be able to understand it, at least in my view.

Tagging in the others to get their views too :smile:

@Princepieman @Tommy Vercetti @UWS

Reply 11

OP

Original post by gcsediva

Thanks for starting this thread.

Can you all give a brief intro as to where are you studying (or have studied).

We all know the Uni ranking sites, however can you give some information where one gets the ' value for money' for students of 2018 onwards, mainly type and quality of teaching, CS is dynamic so where is better tutors.

I studied at Coventry myself. I'd say, at least to some extent, that the value for monety depends on how much effort and interest you're putting into the course as much as it does the university. If you're committed to the course, you'll get a lot more out of it than someone who isn't, regardless of the university.

In terms of where will get you the best value from a university perspective, that also slightly depends on what you want to get out of it; if there are particular areas or modules you want to cover, then make sure you've looked for universities that cover those. From the perspective of quality of tutors and teaching, I believe WhatUni covers that to some extent, so I would recommend looking on there too, if you haven't already!

Tagged in the others below to get their stances on this too :smile:

@Princepieman @Tommy Vercetti @UWS

Original post by shadowdweller

Hello, folks,

I'm shadowdweller, and I studied Computer Science for 3 years, with an additional year in industry. Myself and a few others are ger to answer whatever questions you may have about studying Computer Science and related courses :biggrin:

If you have any questions please post them here, and tag @shadowdweller, @Princepieman, @Tommy Vercetti, @UWS and @Acsel and we'll do our best to answer it for you!

Not sure how to tag people? Simply type @ followed by each of the usernames, or copy and paste the following into yout post: [noparse]@shadowdweller @Princepieman @Tommy Vercetti @UWS @Acsel[/noparse] :yep:

What (or who) got you interested in the subject?

Reply 13

OP

Original post by Labrador99

What (or who) got you interested in the subject?

For me personally I really enjoyed IT topics at school, but felt they quickly became lacking in the levels off information they were giving, and my interest in them started to lack as it seemed to be the same thing year on year, or just generally seemed to be easy content.

When it came to picking A-levels, I wanted to continue studying something on the technology front, but I really didn’t want to carry on with more of the same. I also liked maths a lot, but it wasn’t something I wanted to pursue all the way up to university. My school happened to offer A-level Computing, and it seemed to check all the boxes, so I took a risk and went for it.

From there on I basically got hooked on programming, and all the theoretical concepts of Computing. I loved the problem solving aspects of it, and how satistfying it was to finally solve a programming issue you’d been stuck on for a while. I also liked the freedom you had with programming, whereby you had a goal you intended to solve, but you could choose your own path to get there a lot of the time.

It also helped that A-level Computing is a lot like the first year of a Computer Science course; so whilst that did mean a little frustration with going over some of the content again in first year, it also meant I had a bit of a taster of what the course would be like, and knew I’d enjoy it a lot :biggrin:

Original post by shadowdweller

For me personally I really enjoyed IT topics at school, but felt they quickly became lacking in the levels off information they were giving, and my interest in them started to lack as it seemed to be the same thing year on year, or just generally seemed to be easy content.

When it came to picking A-levels, I wanted to continue studying something on the technology front, but I really didn’t want to carry on with more of the same. I also liked maths a lot, but it wasn’t something I wanted to pursue all the way up to university. My school happened to offer A-level Computing, and it seemed to check all the boxes, so I took a risk and went for it.

From there on I basically got hooked on programming, and all the theoretical concepts of Computing. I loved the problem solving aspects of it, and how satistfying it was to finally solve a programming issue you’d been stuck on for a while. I also liked the freedom you had with programming, whereby you had a goal you intended to solve, but you could choose your own path to get there a lot of the time.

It also helped that A-level Computing is a lot like the first year of a Computer Science course; so whilst that did mean a little frustration with going over some of the content again in first year, it also meant I had a bit of a taster of what the course would be like, and knew I’d enjoy it a lot :biggrin:

Thanks for the detailed answer! :smile:

Reply 15

Physics_Guy23

1

@shadowdweller @Princepieman @Tommy Vercetti @UWS @Acseland

Just finished my gcses and am taking CS at A level (hopefully) and was wondering if you could break it down a bit into what u learn and how much of it. What you would recommend me revising and to be able to be above everyone else or stay level with them. Cheers Cam

Reply 16

OP

Original post by Physics_Guy23

@shadowdweller @Princepieman @Tommy Vercetti @UWS @Acseland

Just finished my gcses and am taking CS at A level (hopefully) and was wondering if you could break it down a bit into what u learn and how much of it. What you would recommend me revising and to be able to be above everyone else or stay level with them. Cheers Cam

Do you know what exam board you'll be with, by any chance? I can summarise the AQA board, but I'll hold off if you're with a different board in case someone else can give more relevant views!

Reply 17

Physics_Guy23

1

Didn’t do at Gcse, but know as a fact they did OCR

Reply 18

OP