Shadow's Impossible Seeming Journey To A*AA

good luck will definitely be following!

Gd luck!

Oh can I please have some tips on how to revise for computer science. I got an E in my mocks and I want to get an A/A* by the end of year 13. Also, for my project I am creating chess. Is it ok if I do a single player game against the computer or it has to be 2 player local multiplayer? Also, what is the best programming language for creating chess???

Thanks in advance

@Shadowdraconis Good luck! I'm so glad you've made a GYG. Btw, I'm going to pm you in a later/tommorow about some stuff... secrets... I'm sure you'll be able to get those A's in maths and bio (congrats on improving so much in bio! ) We have such similar hobbies: swimming, art (GCSE art though.. ) and videogames! (what kind do you play - I tend to play open world fantasy/medieval stuff ) Tag me ofc!

I've visited Loughborough, Leeds and Bath's CS departments! I liked all 3 - Leeds was my insurance, and Bath would've probably been my firm had Durham not existed. Loughborough was slightly less impressive than the other two, but nice nevertheless. To your list, I would add Edinburgh & Nottingham for consideration - two respected CompSci departments there. I would also shamelessly plug Durham, as a second/replacement aspirational choice, but I know it's not to everyone's tastes Finally, make sure you include at least one university that might give you an AAB offer - for me, those were Leeds and Bristol, both due to their "contextual offers." You can check eligibility criteria for those on their websites.

Best of luck with the year ahead

Thanks! I did consider Durham, Edinburgh and Nottingham (I visited Nottingham as a school trip in June, and I did like the campus...) but none of those universities offered an integrated masters course with a year in industry. That seems really picky lol but financially, integrated masters seems better for me and my teachers/universities all recommended a year in industry for widening graduate job prospects.
Most of the integrated masters courses are higher than the bachelors course, and I thought i'd apply to the integrated masters one and if I don't have the grades, change to the bachelors course. Do you recommend applying to some AAB offer bachelors courses instead of the integrated masters?

And best of luck to you too, starting Durham Uni this year!

That's fair enough! Gotta say though, Durham does have a MEng CS course with placement, code G410 (it's not listed on the website but info can be found in the course PDF for G406, you can transfer into it (https://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/faculty.handbook/degrees/frameworks/g406.pdf))... I'll say no more I understand the preference for the integrated masters, it is my preference too! Though my aim is hopefully to secure one or two summer research internships, then go straight to a PhD, I can't stand the thought of working in the private sector haha!

I'm not sure whether I would recommend applying to BSc courses, because I think that negatively impacts your funding for a separate masters course (though I could be wrong). I applied only to 4YM courses, though Leeds was CompSci w/ Maths and Bristol was Maths+CS. Though, the lower offers were due to contextual circumstances I think.

Thanks

Sure, i'll try and give some helpful tips! I think the main thing is just learning the content. I do this by making notes and watching videos on youtube, because there's not any past papers yet to practice with. What exam board are you doing? I also did it at GCSE which was really helpful cos I remembered quite a lot from GCSE. Did you do GCSE in it too?
Your project idea sounds great! From what my teachers have said doing a single player against the computer would actually be better because that's a basic form of AI, which increases the complexity of the program and so increases marks. The only thing is it might be tricky to program the computer to do that. I researched programming languages when I started mine, and most people recommend java. My teachers always emphasised staying away from python tho.
Hope that was helpful!

Wait what?!?! You're actually a goddamn ninja, how did you manage to find that, I literally scoured the internet for hours? Maybe Durham is in the game after all! Thank you so much for finding that wow! That's a good idea, haha fair enough about working in the private sector.

Yeah I think that's how it works. But I think it's possible to transfer onto the integrated masters stream from the bachelors stream, after first/second year. At least Southampton definitely said that, not sure about the others. Ohh ok, i'm pretty sure I'm not applicable for any of the contextual circumstances, especially as I go to a grammar school and live in an ok area.

Thanks Maisie!! Ooh im intrigued about the PM !
Cool! IKR GCSE art was hell! I usually play first person shooter games, but I don't play that much anymore. Atm im playing the one of the only games my laptop can handle: tanki online which is a browser based tank shooting game. I've never tried any open world fantasy games tbh.

I do the OCR course. For my project, I was going to go with pygame and python but I am still unsure. There are things called chess engines which help with predicting moves etc. also there must be libraries in javascript for example to help create chess.

in terms of theory, some of the topics get really confusing. for example normalisation where there are so many ways to manipulate numbers and the methods are so similar you get confused.

Do u think I could produce a new set of notes and revise from them and be ready for the exam to hopefully get an A or A*?

thanks again

Good luck on your Y13 journey; im there too! tag me up. I got a maths resit in week 2 of september and if I get it right, im promised anA* prediction so the pressure is on good luck!!

Ohh ok, I've never used pygame but I've heard of it. Yeah using libraries is definitely a good idea, and i'm sure there will be loads of help on the internet too .

Oh god normalisation! :O It took me like the entirety of year 12 to even begin to understand it. I watched YouTube videos and followed along with their example and I tried to not look at too many videos cos sometimes the many different methods start to become confusing.

I think its definitely possible if you work hard! With the notes what I find also helps is to limit yourself in some way so that you arent copying out the textbook and not taking anything in. I have the rule to make my notes in bullet points only and make each bullet point only take up 1 line (which for me also makes me feel less overwhelmed because i find paragraphs of writing really overwhelming especially when revising. Good luck and I believe in you!