reading around computer science

Learn some language, probs best to be java at the moment if not go for C. Also try get some work in your area, myself I have done work with web designers securing sites, and making promotional materials as well as general fix repair stuff.

Get too know your tutor who will write your referance and make yourself the first port of call for any PC repair they need. And don't be afraid to show off skills to them, wether theroy or otherwise.

Then when it comes to referance it will be glowing, apart from that good luck.

Reply 2

OP

Yeah i'm already learning C at the moment but I thought maybe I should touch on the more mathematical side of computer science such as algorithms etc.

Reply 3

Tipitman

You could do, it depends what you are into. I would look at an area of intrest, so programming, security, maths for compsci, networks. Don't really matter what it is just get really good at it.

The maths would set you out from crowd abit, tbf as long as its fairly technical don't matter what you learn.

Reply 4

Supermerp

2

Try reading The New Turing Omnibus. I heard about it from a weblog. It's got loads of random compsci **** in it (the weblog post tells you where you can read some sample pages).

Reply 5

Scipio90

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/preparation/#practical_prep

Seems Cambridge advise against learning languages like C. Python would probably be better.

Reply 6

DFranklin

Note that the complaint is largely against learning C as a first language, however. Pretty much everyone coded much of their work in 'C/C++' when I was there (that was 20 years ago, however). I must say, my experience was also that most people had a lot more programming experience than that webpage would imply, though again, times may have changed.

Looking at the exam papers, it's interesting to see that ML still plays a role: it was the language used to "level the playing field" because no-one would ever have used anything like it. Of course, you needed to run it on the Uni mainframe back then - people were just starting to try to implement it on high-end PCs, but it didn't work very well.

Reply 7

thomasjtl

Tipitman- wtf? You seriously think that computer science has anything to do with repairing computers?

The turing omnibus is a good book, as is cormen's introduction to algorithms.

Reply 8

alex_hk90

19

I think someone's already linked to it but the Computer Science department at Cambridge gives some suggestions, and my friend who applied for Computer Science was asked to read some of The Pleasures of Counting as preparation for his interview.

Reply 9

DFranklin

Just remembered another site people might find interesting: http://projecteuler.net/

It's more fun/recreational than really serious stuff, and some problems require quite a bit of Maths knowledge. But it will give you some food for thought!

Reply 10

Glutamic Acid

17

Have a look at entering the British Informatics Olympiad next year.

Reply 11

OP

Glutamic Acid

Have a look at entering the British Informatics Olympiad next year.

Wow that looks interesting, always wanted to enter these subject competitions but never knew of any for computing. Also the college im going to next year had a finalist this year, so I guess they will support me entering this unlike my previous school who didn't even tell me about the national chemistry competition.. Thanks for the link :smile:

Reply 12

Glutamic Acid

17

trance addict

Wow that looks interesting, always wanted to enter these subject competitions but never knew of any for computing. Also the college im going to next year had a finalist this year, so I guess they will support me entering this unlike my previous school who didn't even tell me about the national chemistry competition.. Thanks for the link :smile:

No problem. It's quite fun, although I found the wording on one of the questions rather confusing.

Reply 13

OP

Glutamic Acid

No problem. It's quite fun, although I found the wording on one of the questions rather confusing.

One of those guys listed got a top 5 award at my college for computing last year, unfortuantly i dont think I can get a top 5 since we switched to WJEC :mad:

Are you going to be entering?

Reply 14

Glutamic Acid

17

trance addict

One of those guys listed got a top 5 award at my college for computing last year, unfortuantly i dont think I can get a top 5 since we switched to WJEC :mad:

Are you going to be entering?

Yep, probably. I don't expect to do very well, but I'll have a go.

Reply 15

thomasjtl

Tutors aren't likely to pay much attention to computing A level since the syllabus varies a lot from board to board and all generally have a more practical than mathematical bent to them. They certainly won't hold it against you, but will be a lot more interested in your mathematical abilities.

Reply 16

OP

Glutamic Acid

Yep, probably. I don't expect to do very well, but I'll have a go.

These problems are strange, the only ones ive seen that I could solve so far are the 2004 and 2008, are they just supposed to click straight away or not?

Also yeah thomas, I just want to beat that guy for personal satisfaction more than anything :smile:

Cambridge have said they'd prefer further maths AS more than A2 computing, but its only 4 units with 2 being programming so I thought why not take it. Also I know Imperial give out computing offers something like : AAA maths physics computing

Reply 17

pyrolol

ML type languages are awesome. C(++) is not something you should touch till you have a good idea of what a well structured OO program should be like (bad, bad habits are easy to acquire), and even then it must be looked at with caution. The BIO is fun, although it's C/Pascal (urgh) only iirc?

Reply 18

Gimperial

11

Forget C.

Get the "Thinking python", excellent guide to programming with some interesting excerices.

Learning assembler will teach you far more about how computers work than any other language.

Reply 19

OP