Can a BTEC student handle a Computer Science degree?

In general, if you're accepted onto a course at any half-decent university, then it means that you have a strong enough background to be able to cope with the material - otherwise the university wouldn't admit you onto the course. Computer Science courses are aimed at people with no prior knowledge of the subject, so the first year generally covers a lot of material which you'd have otherwise been familiar with from A-Level had you studied A-Level CS.

The best thing to do is to find out about the specific content of the course. Also keep in mind that Computer Science is only one type of Computing degree which tends to be heavy on theory and Maths. There are other Computing degrees which are less mathematical and less theoretical by focusing on more vocational skills instead.

Is Aston a half decent uni? And at Aston they don't have many other kinds of Computing courses; they have Business Computing and IT but that is mostly business related which I'm not interested in. Thanks for the reply.

I had a quick check of Aston's course content and entry requirements for Computer Science - to be honest it looks far more like a vocational Computing course focused on programming and software engineering rather than a mathematical Computer Science course. It seems like there's relatively little Maths, and it's nearly all in the first year where the course content is likely to be gentler, so I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up repeating a lot of the Maths you've already done in your Engineering BTEC.

As far as programming goes - even having zero experience is nothing to worry about because you definitely won't be the only one. You could spend the summer teaching yourself to program if you wanted to get a head-start and that will definitely make your life easier. You frequently find that half the students on any Computer Science course have never touched a line of code before. If you want to get ahead then there's tonnes of brilliant online resources for learning to program though, so it won't hurt (Try Harvard CS50 on edX).

Probably. Depends from person to person, but my brother did computer science at KCL after doing a BTEC and seemed to coast through to first class honours (I wouldn't advise emulating that though, lol).

They just want a 5 in Maths which you can even get on foundation. With your engineering background, you should be more than fine.

Is a 5 the equivalent of a C? I got a B at GCSE. This new numbers system is seriously confusing.

Probably. Depends from person to person, but my brother did computer science at KCL after doing a BTEC and seemed to coast through to first class honours (I wouldn't advise emulating that though, lol).

Hey!

Did your brother do Btec or a level maths?

Nope, his btec was in ICT.

In general, if you're accepted onto a course at any half-decent university, then it means that you have a strong enough background to be able to cope with the material - otherwise the university wouldn't admit you onto the course. Computer Science courses are aimed at people with no prior knowledge of the subject, so the first year generally covers a lot of material which you'd have otherwise been familiar with from A-Level had you studied A-Level CS.

The best thing to do is to find out about the specific content of the course. Also keep in mind that Computer Science is only one type of Computing degree which tends to be heavy on theory and Maths. There are other Computing degrees which are less mathematical and less theoretical by focusing on more vocational skills instead.

What degrees and jobs do you think are more vocationally based?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by"vocationally based" jobs, since all jobs are vocations. Sometimes employers might seek people with a strong academic and mathematical background if the work itself happens to be heavily research-based, but that's only a small percentage of those around. Most technical IT jobs aren't academic or mathematical at all..

Most of the time, jobs such as Networking, Infrastructure, Security, Software Engineering, IT operations, Web design/development, Hardware engineering, etc. really depend upon having strong problem-solving, analytical and technical skills. Most IT jobs are about using technology or code to solve 'real' problems - e.g. building new apps for customers, or upgrading systems for employees, or writing scripts to automate things and save time, or to understand why some technology isn't working properly and fix it. The kinds of courses which focus on those skills are usually the 'vocational' courses - because they focus more on teaching the in-demand skills for those specific kinds of jobs.


In terms of vocational courses themselves, you need to look at the content and modules, but a lot of Computing courses focus on those areas. Sometimes the degrees are named after the vocation itself - e.g. you can get a Degree in Software Engineering, Networking, Cybersecurity, etc -- those are almost certainly going to focus on vocational skills for the IT jobs market. Many universities also have generic "Computing" degrees which give you a wide choice of modules, so that gives you a lot more control over the skills you'd be learning instead of choosing something specific like Software Engineering.


Sometimes computer science courses are more like software engineering degrees - especially at the lower and mid-ranked universities, they usually focus a lot on programming and on projects which are all about writing software.

It's mostly the universities in the 'top 20' whose Computer Science degrees focus more on maths, logical reasoning and academic study of computing. (They do include plenty of topics around programming and technology too, but less than vocational courses).

Here's a few things which usually indicate whether a degree focuses on vocational skills:
- Option to study for professional certification (e.g. Cisco, Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft) included as part of the degree
- Industrial Placement year between 2nd/3rd year
- Heavier focus on vocational/technical topics - e.g. Programming, Networking, Security, Web technologies, Databases, Cloud technologies, System design, UI/UX design, Testing, 'Embedded' systems.
- More emphasis on coursework-based assessment (maybe including group-based coursework), and fewer exams
- Usually only 1 or 2 Maths modules for the whole degree

Thank you for all the info
I applied to Cardiff and south wales uni for computer science and MComp respectively. - both have the industrial year.
Which one of those do you think is more maths based? Cardiff right?
Whilst SWU is more programming based?

Could you mind asking him how much and how he found the maths side of the courses please at Kcl

Apologies for the delay, I do not use this website very much.

In regards to my brother, I haven't personally asked him, but considering he got a first, I'd say he probably found it alright.

In regards to myself? Well I did A level Maths about 5 years ago (I got a D, lmao), did an access course in engineering and am currently studying computer science (not at KCL, I'm at bath). The discrete mathematics we have been studying the first term I find relatively simple. Hoping to get about 70-80% in my upcoming exam (if there aren't too many curveballs I could get see myself getting 90%). Finding programming harder (not the theory of it, the exam was a cakewalk but the programs I make are pretty spaghetti to say the least).

However a classmate of mine who also came from Access to HE in engineering has found the maths quite difficult (but he seems to be much better than me at writing non-spaghetti code).