Which uni has the most links for computer science?

I wanted to know what University is most likely to land you a good job with a good salary for computer science. I know uni of Southampton is regarded very good with its links but it’s quite lower down in the rankings nowadays. Any employers have a preference to what uni you go to at all? I’m very stuck with what unis to apply too so please do let me know

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

21

Computer science graduates have horrible graduate placement records generally (to the point the government has ordered an inquiry into it, the Shadbolt inquiry), because, among other reasons, so many students think just getting a degree in CS and knowing a little bit of code will get them a job after graduating.

This is incorrect.

Employers far more than literally any half-baked notion of prestige care about actual, relevant work experience in the industry. No matter where you do your degree, you should be actively seeking placement opportunities throughout the course, strongly consider a year in industry (if available), and make sure to undertake and document self-driven projects on e.g. GitHub or similar. Even if you go to Oxbridge/Imperial, if you have no experience employers will have very little interest in you, even with an excellent classification, because all they know from that is that you can take exams well. What they want to see is someone from any university with substantive work experience that they can communicate the relevance of in interview to their suitability for the role. A degree apprenticeship is perhaps the best option, in fact, for working in the computing sector.

This is actually generally true for any degree/sector of work except medicine (and possibly dentistry/vet med) - the days of degrees being a conveyor belt to a graduate job, even from Oxbridge, are well and truly dead (and have been for a while). Employers want you to get a degree for the general transferable skills, but they also want to see that you can use those in the workplace before they take you as a permanent employee.

Obviously if your degree has good links to the industry in question this can help with networking, but at the end of the day you are going to need to do the legwork for that. League table rankings are about the furthest thing from being a useful way to determine such links or indeed how "employable" you will be after the degree - since someone with an Oxbridge degree and no relevant experience will probably end up working in a different sector, or in a less desirable role within the sector (e.g. as a sysadmin for a regional branch of a national company - which is what happened to someone I know who did CS & Maths at Oxford, despite their initial lofty ambitions of being a software engineer at e.g. Google/Facebook/etc).

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 2

Arctic Kitten

21

Rankings are very biased and include metrics that are irrelevant to academic qualities (research output, number of student from low-income family, international students...). They don't matter that much, as long as you're applying to companies with a long history (ten years?) and in the UK. They already know which uni is which. Also as @artful_lounger point out experience matters much more.
Southampton is great for CS, I think Manchester is also good (especially if you want to explore more career choice like engineering related stuff)

Reply 3

Will_SoftwareEng

2

I'm currently a 2nd year Computer Science student (specifically software engineering modules) and, just for context, I've received 83% on average from my 2nd year.

I got BCB in Maths, Chemistry and Biology at A-level, and I only go to a ~40th place university (for Comp Sci). Although it is BCS accredited- which is the main part to look out for- as well as the University receiving a 'silver medal' for TEF. I had the same concerns as you but luckily, comp sci tends to be very different when it comes to employability compared to any other degree sector (as you've seen in the other replies already).

The big tech companies (FANG) like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc... really don't care what university you went to- and I'm being deadly serious when I say that. In-fact, they frequently employ software engineers who don't even have a degree. But, the key part is, you have to pass the 'dreaded' interview process. It's extremely tough, but it can be easily prepared for and you'll get a massive reward (I'm talking £80k salary + £40k stock + £15k relocation bonus, and the stock amount usually doubles each year you're at the company).

In a way, it's great because it prevents comp sci graduates from lower univerisities being locked out of the top, highest paying jobs- unlike Law, Medicine, Chemical Eng. , Maths/ Statistics for financial positions (quants), etc...
The only resources you need are: Cracking the Coding Interview book by Gayle Laakmann McDowell (well worth the £20) and then, once you've mastered all the Data structures/ algorithms and Big O complexity, just use LeetCode.com to practise the interview problems you'll face in an interview.

I wish someone gave me this advice towards my career earlier, and this is probably the most important advice to receieve about graduating as a Comp Sci, so I thought I'd share with you what I have learnt.

Good luck in the future!

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 4

Dehydratedwhale

OP

14

Original post by Will_SoftwareEng

I'm currently a 2nd year Computer Science student (specifically software engineering modules) and, just for context, I've received 83% on average from my 2nd year.

I got BCB in Maths, Chemistry and Biology at A-level, and I only go to a ~40th place university (for Comp Sci). Although it is BCS accredited- which is the main part to look out for- as well as the University receiving a 'silver medal' for TEF. I had the same concerns as you but luckily, comp sci tends to be very different when it comes to employability compared to any other degree sector (as you've seen in the other replies already).

The big tech companies (FANG) like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc... really don't care what university you went to- and I'm being deadly serious when I say that. In-fact, they frequently employ software engineers who don't even have a degree. But, the key part is, you have to pass the 'dreaded' interview process. It's extremely tough, but it can be easily prepared for and you'll get a massive reward (I'm talking £80k salary + £40k stock + £15k relocation bonus, and the stock amount usually doubles each year you're at the company).

In a way, it's great because it prevents comp sci graduates from lower univerisities being locked out of the top, highest paying jobs- unlike Law, Medicine, Chemical Eng. , Maths/ Statistics for financial positions (quants), etc...
The only resources you need are: Cracking the Coding Interview book by Gayle Laakmann McDowell (well worth the £20) and then, once you've mastered all the Data structures/ algorithms and Big O complexity, just use LeetCode.com to practise the interview problems you'll face in an interview.

I wish someone gave me this advice towards my career earlier, and this is probably the most important advice to receieve about graduating as a Comp Sci, so I thought I'd share with you what I have learnt.

Good luck in the future!

I cannot thank you enough for this reply!!! It helped so much!! Can I ask what uni you go to and how you’re finding it so far? Do you feel like it’s a lot of stress?

Reply 5

Will_SoftwareEng

2

Original post by Dehydratedwhale

I cannot thank you enough for this reply!!! It helped so much!! Can I ask what uni you go to and how you’re finding it so far? Do you feel like it’s a lot of stress?

You're very welcome, and if you talk to anyone who managed to get a position at these top companies, they really will tell you the exact same thing. I have a Google senior software engineer as a mentor too (he's also on the hiring board and does the interviews for software engineering candidates) and he has given me lots of good advice- such as make sure you get an internship in the 2nd to 3rd year summer break. This is really important; it doesn't matter which company it's at, as even small, local companies teach you a lot more than some bigger ones.

I go to the University of Hull (you can check out the Comp Sci modules on their website). Hull uni is good for sciences, specifically Chemistry (where LCD crystals were first made/ discovered) and Computer Science.

It's been tough at times (certain modules being surprisingly hard), especially at the beginning since I'd never done anything to do with Computing before starting Uni. They teach C#, C++, Python, Java (Android Mobile dev) and a few others, so it's great.

There is stress for me because I want to achieve ~85% for my overall degree, to show I have what it takes to be at a top uni and therefore deserve to be at the top companies, but if you only wanted a 2:1 you wouldn't struggle too much. It is a great uni though and as long as a course is BCS accredited, it's good enough.

Which uni has the most links for computer science?

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