Doing IT at a-level....

Una · 5 Sep 2006 at 21:25

crystaline said:
lol @ ICT.

All that does is get you further acquainted with Office.

I worked my arse off in Computing and most people who went on to do computer science or related degrees at uni said if they'd have done ICT it would have been useless as it gives you no groundwork for uni.

Heh well computing was a bit of a joke as well, I did it for AS then dropped it before A2. I hardly learned anything useful from it that I use on my CS degree, maths is much more useful.

MuvverRussia · 5 Sep 2006 at 21:27

Computing was a bit of a doss ALevel. For my CP5 paper I missed out an entire page of questions, still obtained 93% or so for it- if i'd answered those questions it'd probably been 100

crystaline · 5 Sep 2006 at 21:31

Una said:
Heh well computing was a bit of a joke as well, I did it for AS then dropped it before A2. I hardly learned anything useful from it that I use on my CS degree, maths is much more useful.

Probably depends on the teacher tbh. Some are up with technology some are not quite. the teacher makes all the difference

Psyk · 5 Sep 2006 at 22:00

I must admit I didn't learn much from doing AS computing. But the point in doing it for me was basically a free AS-level where I already knew most of what I needed to pass it.

crystaline · 5 Sep 2006 at 22:04

Psyk said:
I must admit I didn't learn much from doing AS computing. But the point in doing it for me was basically a free AS-level where I already knew most of what I needed to pass it.

I found it very difficult. Our teacher was old school Pascal/Delphi and really put us through our paces with out of date software. Learnt some interesting bits and pieces but it was hard and at times the material was very frustrating.

I did the full A Level and was the only girl to get it but I did need help at points.

Psyk · 5 Sep 2006 at 22:05

crystaline said:
I found it very difficult. Our teacher was old school Pascal/Delphi and really put us through our paces with out of date software. Learnt some interesting bits and pieces but it was hard and at times the material was very frustrating.

I did the full A Level and was the only girl to get it but I did need help at points.

I was already pretty familiar with programming so I imagine it could be difficult for someone that has never done it before.

bigredshark · 5 Sep 2006 at 22:59

i did computing at AS and A2, about 5 of us did it, was good fun, wrote a steganographic encryption program in c# for my A2 coursework, those were the days...

Psypher5 · 5 Sep 2006 at 23:27

applied ict is alright. a lot of work, hard if you dont plan, but passable.

Starting my second year of it soon, should be alright

Finding computing hard, I'm not a programmer

da_mic_1530 · 5 Sep 2006 at 23:30

computing = boring as hell, didnt understand
ict = playing on games, doing loads of CW, 1st year = easy, 2nd year = boring

il write a better post 2mora

Fr0dders · 5 Sep 2006 at 23:32

for what its worth

my god parent is a unversity lecturer and advised me not to bother with A level IT

as its micky mouse stuff.

you'll spend your first year of uni being taught differently to what you've been taught at A level

and hes an examiner for the A level and on the board that does the qualification.

Universitys dont require A level IT for entry onto IT degrees, employers dont require it either. Because they know its worthless. Save yourself a waste of time and do a proper A level.

If your serious about getting a job in IT, you dont even really need to bother with University, as once you get out of uni, you'll just be another one of hundreads with a degree and no experience.

In the current IT jobmarket. Experience is everything.

Company's like computeach dont help either. "you too could be a games designer etc.." they just encourage blaggers. Which is why recruiters want experience.

Have a look at www.reed.co.uk and www.cwjobs.co.uk. Both IT recruitment websites. See how many of them require experience, compared with how many require a degree.

If you want to get into IT, get yourself in at the bottom and get the experience.

ErNciLator · 6 Sep 2006 at 00:31

I wanted to do both IT and Computing; but they wouldnt let me.

I guess IT is soft option of Computing.

Spuderoony · 6 Sep 2006 at 00:43

Half of IT is business studies type stuff. If you do IT at least you won't be seen as being as much as a loser by the rest of college as those who do computing

Welshy · 6 Sep 2006 at 00:43

ICT at any level is pretty much useless in my eyes, it's computing you want to go for. Unless of course your going to be a secretary or something, and need to know the ins and outs of office apps.

Did computing at A-Level, was really interesting, but also quite hard. Would probably have been easier had we actually worked rather than play networked games of Quake and Doom most lessons

Psyk · 6 Sep 2006 at 00:44

ErNciLator said:
I wanted to do both IT and Computing; but they wouldnt let me.

I guess IT is soft option of Computing.

Not really. IT is more or less a completely different subject. They probably only overlap to the same extent physics and chemistry do.

mosfet · 6 Sep 2006 at 00:47

IT is very much a soft option, ("Advanced use of Excel" is a good way of putting it) but it differs to computing, which is more maths and physics based. The AQA Computing course I did was still quite soft, but at least it's a real course, that universities accept as a 'proper' qualification.

da_mic_1530
computing = boring as hell, didnt understand
ict = playing on games, doing loads of CW, 1st year = easy, 2nd year = boring

il write a better post 2mora

We can certainly see where your academic priorities lie. If you do not understand the utterly basic concepts presented to you in computing, why are you taking the course?

bigredshark · 6 Sep 2006 at 00:50

having done computing at AS and A2, i should add it's done little for job, any prgramming these days in unix based in some way, knowing the theory is sometimes helpful though. No help troubleshooting iBGP routing though...

pinkegobox · 6 Sep 2006 at 01:24

bigredshark said:
having done computing at AS and A2, i should add it's done little for job, any prgramming these days in unix based in some way, knowing the theory is sometimes helpful though. No help troubleshooting iBGP routing though...

any programming these days is unix based? care to elaborate?

bigredshark · 6 Sep 2006 at 01:44

pinkegobox said:
any programming these days is unix based? care to elaborate?

sorry, not clear, any programming *i do at work* these days will be unix based, scripts and the like for our hosting platforms...

mosfet · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:08

Does it really matter what platform the work is on? The introduction to the 3 most important languages types (Basic, Object Oriented, Logical) that computing provides is a good grounding for any programming job.

Una · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:11

bigredshark said:
any prgramming these days in unix based in some way,

Err what? If anything programming these days is moving away from native platform based code to VM based. Platform has nothing to do with programming unless your writing platform specific code.

EDIT: Ah sorry, you mean at *your* work.