Any Computer Science grads here?

josh91

josh91

josh91

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Guessing there are quite a lot, so I just wanted to ask a couple things. :)

How was it? Was it everything you expected and what kinda jobs are you working in now?

Also do you reckon it's worth it to do a MEng/Msci rather than a BSci/BEng?

Thanks
I'm making my uni choices at the moment so just wanted a bit of insight into what I'm gonna take, cheers! :D
 
I'd do it, more for the things you learn during your downtime than the course material. Oh and its always nice to have a degree. The biggest thing i'd recommend is do a degree with a placement/"sandwich" year.

I did a year at Intel Corp as my placement year which set me up for a cushty job during my final year and both of those 2 years experience set me up for life pretty much so far.

I did however start university when tuition fees were £1000~ a year, not 1 kidney a year like the government wants now.
 
been working in development now for 13 years after getting a 2:1 Hons BSc in computer science

i'm very, very glad i did a sandwich year - it counted for a hell of a lot when i went for my first graduate job all those moons ago

when i went to uni - tuition was free...
 
I finished my Hons BSc in Computer Science last year, getting a 2:1. I did it without the placement year, which i would not recommend, but i still managed to get myself a very impressive graduate job as an IT consultant in a good firm!
 
Well luckily I'm going to be starting with the last year of students that don't have to pay the increased fees (woo!)

So what I'm getting from you guys is that I should do a placement year, I was going to do that but because I'm 19 and going to be 20 by the time I start uni because I went back to college to do different subjects so that I could do Comp sci I didn't want to be like 23/24 by the time I leave uni, so I was going to do a summer internship or something, hopefully with a company like Google if I'm lucky enough...what do you think about that? :)

Cheers guys this is really helping me a lot.
 
Went to Newcastle Uni. I enjoyed the degree, but found that programming daily wasn't really suited to me. I'm now working in online marketing for an agency that deals purely with blue chips and loving every second of it.
 
Like the others have said definitely do a placement.

Also, don't expect to learn much that you will ever use again. Most of what I learned I picked up myself.

It's all about experience in IT - qualifications only get you onto the ladder.
 
I didn't do a placement and it didn't hinder me at all (I found a job within a month of leaving Uni). However, thesedays I feel it would be very useful - apart from the experience of a working environment, it could open up opportunities you wouldn't have had without the placement.

I would say that most of what I learned at Uni just gave me a foundation of understanding, basically it was just the start of the learning curve. Much of it I haven't used since and am unlikely to, ever (anyone remember VRML?).

If I could go back and do it again and if I was going to stick with Computer Science, I would have done a mixed CS/Business Computing course. I've found that as I have progressed in my career, the technical aspect starts to subside and is replaced with the business aspect.

Good luck.
 
josh91 said:
Well luckily I'm going to be starting with the last year of students that don't have to pay the increased fees (woo!)

So what I'm getting from you guys is that I should do a placement year, I was going to do that but because I'm 19 and going to be 20 by the time I start uni because I went back to college to do different subjects so that I could do Comp sci I didn't want to be like 23/24 by the time I leave uni, so I was going to do a summer internship or something, hopefully with a company like Google if I'm lucky enough...what do you think about that? :)

Cheers guys this is really helping me a lot.
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Dont let age worry you, its irrelevant. I know plenty of 30+ year old graduates. A summer internship is good, but a year-13 months doing it will give you a real taste and importantly some real experiences to discuss in interviews. The short term stuff you wont generally do much "deep" tech, more "copy and paste this" and "cable that".
 
SMN said:
I'd do it, more for the things you learn during your downtime than the course material. Oh and its always nice to have a degree. The biggest thing i'd recommend is do a degree with a placement/"sandwich" year.
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This is very good advice.

I done a Comp Sci degree and although I found a job in development soon after it was much tougher than expected and I'm sure I could have found something better if I'd had a fraction more "real world" experience under my belt.

I'm now 3.5 years into my second development position after graduating (2002) and earning goodish money for a large online retailer. Its great most of the time but like anything you do for a prolonged period you sometimes see the grass as being greener on the other side. I could do with moving on but the jobs market isn’t great and my office is only 5-10 minutes from my house which is a double edged sward
 
I graduated in 2005 and had a graduate placement lined up for the day I finished. I didn't bother with a full year out but I did a summer placement through a government scheme (can't remember it's name ) between years 2 & 3 where I programmed assembly robots.

I didn't bother with a placement year because I thought personally it wouldn't improve my skills enough to offset a full year out.

I work in telecoms now but never really went the full IT route as I wanted to do more management stuff and move quickly, I don't do the same job for more than 2 years. For my age the money I'm on I think is pretty good and because I move a lot I don't really have a problem with fatigue. In my opinion technical only gets you so far, at some point I figure I would have either had to make the jump to management to further my career or just go that route anyway and get a head start.

I found most the aspects of my degree useful except for AI due to it's highly specialist nature I guess.

In all honesty though, I went to uni to goto uni. I figured I'd get a degree which would help but that was really just a result, the journey was far more interesting :)
 
Completed Comp Science degree last year and worked in media for a bit, programming I realised really wasn't my thing and I am now going after a completely different career path.

That being said, Computer Science is a great degree as it shows employers you are smart as its maths / sciences related and opens a lot of doors rather than being stuck down one career route. Go for it :)
 
I'm only in my first year, but a bit of insight...
A lot of uni's (including mine) teach mainly Java. I highly recommend you learn AT LEAST C++, preferably another language as well. I know it was a key point in my summer jobs. Other than that... well, it's great fun at uni. Just don't expect to be doing anything hard in the first couple of months.
 
Graduated almost two years ago in BSc Computer Network Management & Security. I obtained a first, with the BsC Outstanding Performer 2009.

How was it? - Personally i found it tough going towards the end with the major project, but just got on with it head down and got the work done. It was not a case of how hard the course was more.... the work load.

Although i have recently found out they have made the degree, a lot easier over the last two years, a lot of the modules i done have now been dropped. They dont even teach c++, Java or even Python.

Was it everything you expected and what kinda jobs are you working in now? Yes and No is the answer to that question, certain aspects i expected others no so much, first year modules such as database design etc No

I am currently employeed by a Microsoft Gold Partner - for Microsoft Dynamics
 
Kraven said:
Completed Comp Science degree last year and worked in media for a bit, programming I realised really wasn't my thing and I am now going after a completely different career path.

That being said, Computer Science is a great degree as it shows employers you are smart as its maths / sciences related and opens a lot of doors rather than being stuck down one career route. Go for it :)
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What have you gone into and how did you go about it coming from a CS background?
 
Finished a BSc Hons in 2004 (2:1), didn't bother with any work placement and it didn't effect me, got the first job I went for, although I guess the competition is a lot higher these days...

I've been working for Nokia (music division) for the past 2 years as a senior software engineer and couldn't imagine a better job, brilliant company to work for.... and I've worked for quite a few FTSE top 100 ones.

I wouldn't worry about the languages in uni as some have suggested, Java, c++ etc is much of a muchness. I got tought Java, but I've worked in C#, C, java, scala, rails, and presently javascript, qt (c++) and qml all in different software houses...

However, functional has come back into fashion again, so somewhere offering Haskell, Erlang, Lisp etc would be a big pull for me, and make you stand out of the crowd of a gazllion Java/c++ grads.
 
Graduated in July and was lucky enough to earn a 1st.

josh91 said:
How was it? Was it everything you expected and what kinda jobs are you working in now?
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Not really no, the course was very hard work, more so than most other courses it seemed. Like others have said the course was quite Java heavy, that's not to say that it wasn't useful. Quite frankly having lectures on programming seems wrong to me anyway. The way I see it you learn to program through implementation rather than observation, so the majority of what you learn is sat in your bedroom.

My course did cover a variety of other parts of computing that I wouldn't have had access to though. For example my final year project allowed me to use some very expensive (and cool) hardware. I was also given a wider view of areas in computing that I probably wouldn't have looked into on my own.

One of which was Computer Forensics, which is what I do now. It's a pretty interesting field and not the standard Computing Job.

As others have said getting experience is really important and a year in industry or a summer placement seems to really help. I managed to get a funded research grant over the summer and I think it really helped me improve programming skills / develop work ethic.


josh91 said:
Also do you reckon it's worth it to do a MEng/Msci rather than a BSci/BEng?

Thanks
I'm making my uni choices at the moment so just wanted a bit of insight into what I'm gonna take, cheers! :D
Click to expand...
I was planning to do a Masters to ride out the recession a little. By the time it got to that stage though I was more than ready to move on. I'd just start with a BSc and see how you feel then.
 
Graduated in 2006 from Nottingham - now work in eCommerce management consultancy. Worked on quite a few varied, high profile projects and just back from 6 months leave of absence. Can't really complain.
 
DO A PLACEMENT

You will need something to differentiate you from the thousands of other grads and not even a first will do that! Relevant work experience will set you apart from the masses.
 
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