Best university for computer science

Well I went in to college and found the independent careers advisor to ask about my options...

As it turns out being 28 I'm going to struggle far to much to get a college to teach me a-levels and if I do I will have to pay through the nose as there is no funding for that for adults....

I have been told to keep on at this course getting my distinctions, do a maths GCSE resit to get atleast a B and go to the best uni I can get into with those, then go and do my masters with Cambridge or other top university!

Do you guys think this could be the correct advice for me?
 
Eliot said:
Dont just go of league tables, pick a university which has an actual grounding in computer science and a course that is career focused. I went to glamorgan south wales and they have a huge comp science campus with a great forensic computing course too.
GCHQ get grads from there
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Have to second that i graduated with a comp forensics degree from glamorgan and their "faculty of advanced technology" is excellent :)
 
As long you don't go somewhere that's complete rubbish you will be fine. Most employers will not be consulting the league table whilst looking at your CV. They will just look at it and see Sheffield or Manchester or Warwick or whatever and as long as it's a decent University in general they won't be too fussy beyond that.

Just avoid mickey mouse subjects (which is fine if you're doing computer science) and mickey mouse universities (don't get too hung up on this, just choose somewhere that you like and has a decent reputation).
 
mikeyp123 said:
KCL is enjoyable so far. There are enough people on my course into the big boy banks (2nd year internships) as well as people with IBM/Google(final stages)/Accenture. I'm not quite of that calibre, not going to lie, but I am doing decently in the degree and interning with a web development company in the summer.
Our 2nd year group project, which is programming autonomous vacuum cleaners using SLAM algorithms in teams of 8. We have a full scale software development project done by the end of year 2, including research, proposals, design(UML etc), implementation and testing. God knows what I would say in an interview if I hadn't been doing this.
It's done in collaboration with Credit Suisse (we present our project proposals, design plans and eventual implementations to senior credit suisse technical staff) and they actually help grade our projects, which is rather cool. Certainly puts you in at the deep end to be put through a 10 minute Q+A grilling on your algorithm design.
We have investment banks inviting us to fairs and networking events on a weekly basis and I know of a fair few who are already in internships with DB, JPMorgan, BT etc

League tables aren't everything, if you talk to the right companies, they'll tell you what type of graduates and the relevant universities they want. UCL trump us in ratings, but from the employers i've talked to we are pretty much on par.
If you've got the right mind for programming and a solid basis in maths, pick and choose as you like.
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Do you mind if I send some questions to you via the email address in your trust?
 
If students can get onto a Medicine degree from doing an Access course, I don't believe for one second that you can't get into a good uni for Comp Science with a good Level 3 BTEC behind you.
 
if you had to re-sit GCSE maths, then you may want to think again about doing a degree which has extremely complicated maths foundations.

unless of course there was a decent reason for having to re-sit it.
 
I did a BTEC and came out with DDD, I got offered places from Reading Uni, Southampton Uni, Kent Uni, Bristol Uni and L'Boro Uni. I chose Reading, and am currently on a placement working as a Developer at Microsoft.

The tables, sorted by post course employability -
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God I wish I hadn't ruined my life and done this terrible BTEC, can't wait to live in a bin and eat apple cores...
 
all the people saying that its just the university that matters, thats not entirely true

im currently applying for interships for 12 months for september, im at UNI OF MANC and got a 2:2 in my first year, i have friends at MMU doing the same course who got 2:1's who have been interviewed for places i was declined from purely through having a 2:1 over a 2:2
 
Imperial is quite funny, entry requirements are stupidly high but there rankings dont really justify it.
It's a good University but the requirements are often higher than oxbridge.
 
RomanNose said:
Won't he have to take the physics aptitude test for Oxbridge? I looked at it before, it is rock rock solid. You need to do further maths for it and you really need a personal tutor. It's solid, and by solid I mean so solid that a lot of A level physics teachers would struggle with.
You don't necessarily need to go to Cambridge to get that career fair, of course it helps being in Cambridge as ARM is next door but lots of other Universities offer something very similar :p.
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Not really, I sat the maths aptitude test (which is regarded as harder than the physics aptitude test) without personal tutoring (and from a crap school/college). The questions are intended to look hard, but use fairly basic concepts, it just requires some "outside the box" thinking.
 
jonneymendoza said:
rubbish. Uni's dont teach u jack, if you want to achieve something in uni you have go about doing it on your own learning and thinking outside of the box.

for instance, i did computer science at westminister. they only taught us the very basic of java yet by the end of my 3 year course i self taught myself j2se and swing and made a Instant messanger program with a client, server and admin app(allows you to ban, suspend people).

it even had a real time dynamic friends list.

All done on my own
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Fantastic! Good for you.
However you have no idea what you are on about and clearly Westminster takes students who haven't even got a GCSE in English. You can't even spell the name of your college (oops I mean University - So hard to tell the difference these days) correctly!
Going to a good University is essential, especially so when you are paying £9000 per year tuition fee*.

And "Uni's not teaching you jack" - What? I learnt a huge amount in my engineering degree and guess what?! I got job offers upon graduation!


*Any University not charging this is desperately trying to fill places.
 
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