Ask a current CompSci Student anything

Hi everyone!

I'm Joshua, a 3rd year comp sci student at the university of Southampton. I wanted to start this discussion for any computer science or university related questions that I can answer for you, anything from Yr12 applications to life as a CompSci student to living in southampton. You name it, I'll do my best to answer :biggrin:

Reply 1

beestudies

how did you survive computer science? How is it like, seems quite broad. Is it easy for you to get a job with the degree after uni?

Reply 2

Rob Bellic

Original post by JKUos

Hi everyone!
I'm Joshua, a 3rd year comp sci student at the university of Southampton. I wanted to start this discussion for any computer science or university related questions that I can answer for you, anything from Yr12 applications to life as a CompSci student to living in southampton. You name it, I'll do my best to answer :biggrin:

How difficult is it to get a year in industry placement?
Can you choose to move from an integrated masters course to a 3 year BSc course?
How active is the Cyber Security Society? Are they involved with competitions at different unis?

Reply 3

JKUos

Official Rep

Original post by beestudies

how did you survive computer science? How is it like, seems quite broad. Is it easy for you to get a job with the degree after uni?

Hi @beestudies ,

I'm in 3rd year so I can't comment on getting a job with the degree after uni from experience (yet), but here is what I'll say. The IT job market has been quite consistent the last few years, and it is a huge market! Yes, it is competitive, but with the amount of support universities supply (like help finding graduate schemes, careers fairs, employability workshops etc) I'm quite confident I'll be able to land a job after I graduate. University of Southampton has an 87% Graduate prospects rate according to the Guardian, which means that after 15 months of leaving study 87% of the graduates are either in a graduate level job or higher study!

How am I surviving? Good question 😅. I won't lie, it is tough, but it is rewarding. It's really important that you enjoy your degree otherwise it will become very hard to enjoy it and get through it. Also, university life stretches way past my studies, and I've been involved with a few student societies and sports to help give me something outside of my learning to focus on, which has been super helpful!

Computer Science degrees are quite broad, but they come with a wide range of choice with the module choices, so you can refine and specialise in an area that you want to! I'm specialising in cyber security, some of my coursemates are specialising in AI, others in Robotics and Animatronics, others Computer Vision, or software development, the flexibility is amazing.

Joshua

Reply 4

JKUos

Official Rep

Original post by Rob Bellic

Hi @Rob Bellic !

Thank you for your questions 😀

"How difficult is it to get a year in industry placement?" - This is a very hard question to answer, as it varies a lot year on year depending on what companies are offering or not. I can't easily quantify how 'easy/difficult' it is, but here's what I will say. The Electronics and CompSci School has their own industry officer who always emails us about opportunities she finds, and you can book appointments to get her help. The Uni has a careers service to help you to get year in industry placements too. Most people that I've known to try to get a year in industry have successfully got a placement! I'd say its quite likely you will get one, but it still involves some hard work to get it, ultimately how 'difficult' it is depends on how much effort and energy you put into getting a placement 🙂

"Can you choose to move from an integrated masters course to a 3 year BSc course?" Yep of course! And at any time too. Nearly all the CompSci courses have the flexibility to change degree titles, specialisms, and lengths. So yes, you can move from the Integrated MEng to the 3yr BSc whenever you want to, until the deadline for confirming if you want to graduate in 3rd year or not.

"How active is the Cyber Security Society? Are they involved with competitions at different unis?" The Cyber Security Society (SUCSS) are incredibly active, they run an interactive session for a different area of cyber security every Wednesday for 2hrs which is awesome! I don't think there are that many national competitions as its more of a learning society than a competition society, but they do advertise hackathons and competitions to their members so they can join them if they want.

Hope this helps!

Joshua

Reply 5

Rob Bellic

Original post by JKUos

Hi @beestudies ,
I'm in 3rd year so I can't comment on getting a job with the degree after uni from experience (yet), but here is what I'll say. The IT job market has been quite consistent the last few years, and it is a huge market! Yes, it is competitive, but with the amount of support universities supply (like help finding graduate schemes, careers fairs, employability workshops etc) I'm quite confident I'll be able to land a job after I graduate. University of Southampton has an 87% Graduate prospects rate according to the Guardian, which means that after 15 months of leaving study 87% of the graduates are either in a graduate level job or higher study!
How am I surviving? Good question 😅. I won't lie, it is tough, but it is rewarding. It's really important that you enjoy your degree otherwise it will become very hard to enjoy it and get through it. Also, university life stretches way past my studies, and I've been involved with a few student societies and sports to help give me something outside of my learning to focus on, which has been super helpful!
Computer Science degrees are quite broad, but they come with a wide range of choice with the module choices, so you can refine and specialise in an area that you want to! I'm specialising in cyber security, some of my coursemates are specialising in AI, others in Robotics and Animatronics, others Computer Vision, or software development, the flexibility is amazing.
Joshua

It's good to see another Cyber enthusiast. Have you been taught how to use pen-testing tools like Metasploit, Nmap etc?

And do you think that the teaching at the Uni is sufficient to start a career in cyber sec or would you have to self learn some more skills before you can get a foot in the door?

Are summer internships easier to get into compared to industry placements?

Reply 6

JKUos

Official Rep

Original post by Rob Bellic

It's good to see another Cyber enthusiast. Have you been taught how to use pen-testing tools like Metasploit, Nmap etc?
And do you think that the teaching at the Uni is sufficient to start a career in cyber sec or would you have to self learn some more skills before you can get a foot in the door?
Are summer internships easier to get into compared to industry placements?

Hey @Rob Bellic ,

I went to speak to the guys at the Cyber Security Society and here is what they said:

•

Pentesting & Nmap / Metasploit: Yes! Next term there will be a session run by the Cyber Security Students on Metasploit and maybe Nmap too along with other Kali tools

•

Summer Internships vs industry placements: it's very hard to say, as it depends what companies are offering in terms of their availability. However, if your application is good enough to get one, its good enough to get the other so its more a case of which would you prefer to do.

•

"Is uni sufficient?": No. An alumni who is now working for a Cyber Security company (Netcraft iirc) said the following.

"Teaching at uni is definitely not enough - keep in mind that your target is a moving one. There isn't a magical threshold above which everyone is "good enough", and you are effectively competing against others. Those who just did a degree or idly turned up to some society sessions are maybe in the middle of the queue, if that"
(And that referrers to all degree programs, not just ours lol)

And went on to say:
"Tbh, to be good in this industry, you need to be a little bit of a freak - you should actively enjoy messing with things, finding loopholes in systems (computer or societal), and you need to have at least some fun when doing it. If you are that person, then you probably already have evidence of that, it might just need fleshing out. If you don't have that mindset, then tbh there are better careers"

Hope this helps,

Joshua

Reply 7

jennylambchop

Are there any computer software game design modules?

Reply 8

futuredoctor17

for computer science and cybersecurity
what work experience did you do and how much do you need

(edited 2 weeks ago)

Reply 9

astr0star123

Hi! I want to apply for cs at Southampton, but I really wanna join the fsae team — would cs pose a disadvantage? How would that go?

Reply 10

unsure-student

Hi, I'm currently a y12 student and I'm contemplating whether I want to do computer science. I currently take bio, chem and maths, and dropped further maths in september because I found it really stressful and was usually behind in class. I sort of regret that decision now that I want to do computer science. I know that not doing further maths eliminates my chance of doing computer science at the top unis (oxbridge, imperial), and so I'm aiming to do computer science at less competitive unis. I was just wondering, does the university you go to for computer science really matter? I've seen imperial computing graduates to have some of the highest starting salaries out there and I'm worried that not graduating from a reputed university will limit the job opportunities I have. Would experience in the field be enough to compensate for the name of the university you get the degree from? If I were to do a 4 year comp sci degree with a year in the industry, would I have the same/similar job opportunities and salary as an Imperial college cs graduate??

Thank you so much for your help :smile:

Reply 11

Amy1978

Hi what things were you doing in sixth form to ensure you had a great UCAS personal statement ?

Reply 12

futuredoctor17

Original post by unsure-student

you only need maths for cambridge

Reply 13

jennylambchop

Original post by futuredoctor17

you only need maths for cambridge

Further maths.

Reply 14

futuredoctor17

Original post by jennylambchop

Further maths.

it says if your school offers it

(edited 1 week ago)

Reply 15

iive

Hello,

Do we have to pay for any course material like books during the degree or is most stuff available in the library? Also does the uni support students with any IT costs they may need to make towards buying a laptop?