Uni: BSc Hons Multimedia Computing and Design

CliffyBiro

CliffyBiro

CliffyBiro

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Hi guys.

Been thinking about what I'm going to be doing next year and I'm considering the Multimedia Computing and Design course at Uni of Ulster. Been to the opening day today at one of their campuses and unfortunately, there was no talk on this course. I did, however talk to some of the lecturers from the computing school who advised me on entry requirements and such.

Has anyone here taken this course? Basically, I'm just looking for people's personal experiences of the course content, difficulty, and overall use at the end of the 4 years. Did you go on to find work or take your education further?

Currently, I've got full set of GSCEs, not that they matter now, a HND in Computing, and currently undertaking a BTEC ND in Multimedia. (Decided software development just wasn't for me in the long term.)

End game, I want to work in graphic design/front-end web development.

Thanks for your time to read and hopefully give your experiences and advice. It's all helpful.
 
I'm a contract web developer (mostly front-end, some back-end) and I'd say depending on whether you'd prefer an in-house studio style position in the field or a freelance/contract based job means a lot when making this decision.

Degrees don't help a lot in this industry, for more graphical/front-end roles a decent portfolio is the best starting place, I've recruited quite a few designers/developers within contracts and I skip straight past education qualifications because from experience I know that none of that really makes much difference.

If you work well in education, can manage your time effectively and would prefer a full-time permy job in a studio then go for it. Just make sure that whilst your course may help you build your portfolio, many don't and usually end up being a sort of 'mickey-mouse' degree with a taste of everything but not enough to develop your skills to a professional level.

Generally speaking, for contract work education isn't even usually included on the CVs its purely experience and portfolio.

Either way I'd probably suggest going to Uni and using the time on the course and outside to develop your skills and build a reasonable portfolio and of course enjoy the Uni experience :)
 
toosepin said:
I'm a contract web developer (mostly front-end, some back-end) and I'd say depending on whether you'd prefer an in-house studio style position in the field or a freelance/contract based job means a lot when making this decision.

Degrees don't help a lot in this industry, for more graphical/front-end roles a decent portfolio is the best starting place, I've recruited quite a few designers/developers within contracts and I skip straight past education qualifications because from experience I know that none of that really makes much difference.

If you work well in education, can manage your time effectively and would prefer a full-time permy job in a studio then go for it. Just make sure that whilst your course may help you build your portfolio, many don't and usually end up being a sort of 'mickey-mouse' degree with a taste of everything but not enough to develop your skills to a professional level.

Generally speaking, for contract work education isn't even usually included on the CVs its purely experience and portfolio.

Either way I'd probably suggest going to Uni and using the time on the course and outside to develop your skills and build a reasonable portfolio and of course enjoy the Uni experience :)
Click to expand...

Thanks. Much appreciated.

As far as the degree itself goes, It's not so much the final 'qualification' that I'd want to take it for, but as you said to develop skills, and learn new ones. For example, I don't know any PHP or Javascript, and I'd hope this would be included on the degree. The year's placement is also one of the main attractions for me as it offers experience at a professional level.

Ideally, I'd like to get a few years in a studio under my belt and then go fully into freelance hopefully with some contacts and a lot of support through my time with the studio.

Does that sound reasonable enough?
 
I did the multimedia computing course in DLIADT, I assume it's a very similar course. Basically it covers a lot of the basics, a lot of stuff you'll probably know already. I went in there knowing a lot of paint shop pro, photoshop, blender and 3ds max so I didn't learn a lot on that front. My intention when I entered the course was to try and get into game design as an artist.

After the second year there though I realised I enjoyed programming far more then the art side. After getting my third year ordinary degree I left the course as it was just too general for me. The 4th year was even more theory based then the previous years had been whereas I really wanted to get some more programming knowledge.

After bouncing around for a couple of years I ended up doing software development in GMIT which was a great course, far more detail to it and much more to my liking. Now I've just finished a MSc. in Interactive Entertainment Technology in TCD and am hopefully on my way to a job programming in a games studio somewhere :)

So overall the multimedia course was a good thing for me as it showed me a broad range of areas in computing, it showed me that I was better suited as a programmer. But it is just not specific enough in any area to be of real use if you already know what you want to learn. You're not going to come out of it even after 4 years with enough programming knowledge to get a decent job, I know some people that went into programming jobs after it that they just weren't qualified for. I can only assume that the same would hold true for the graphics side of it.

The most in-depth thing we did was a bit of modelling in 3DS max, some programming and artwork in director and flash and a bit of photoshop.

If you're sure you want to do graphics then I'd say go and find a course more dedicated to that subject.
 
skippi90 said:
Thanks. Much appreciated.

As far as the degree itself goes, It's not so much the final 'qualification' that I'd want to take it for, but as you said to develop skills, and learn new ones. For example, I don't know any PHP or Javascript, and I'd hope this would be included on the degree. The year's placement is also one of the main attractions for me as it offers experience at a professional level.

Ideally, I'd like to get a few years in a studio under my belt and then go fully into freelance hopefully with some contacts and a lot of support through my time with the studio.

Does that sound reasonable enough?
Click to expand...

Very reasonable. As Darg mentioned the time would also be useful for you finding your preferred niche in the industry and working out what you prefer/end up being strongest at.

Regarding the course, most likely (from my experience with MM degrees) you wont directly do much PHP, you'll probably be taught plenty of Java (if you have a module called Programming then this is almost a guarantee) which you use as a step-up for gettinig into other languages such as PHP so it is still a good thing.

A warning about placements though; spots seem to be very trim nowadays and I know plenty of students who ended up having to skip the YII sandwich plan and do a 3 year back to back BSc. If you have connections or get in there early enough then you may be lucky to get a placement but it really depends on how much effort you put into getting one.

EDIT:
Darg said:
The most in-depth thing we did was a bit of modelling in 3DS max, some programming and artwork in director and flash and a bit of photoshop.

If you're sure you want to do graphics then I'd say go and find a course more dedicated to that subject.
Click to expand...

As above, the degree is quite generic and you wont be fine-tuned in many specific areas such as graphic design / programming etc but what you come out with skill and interest-wise will depend entirely on how you develop yourself whilst on the course and 'go the extra mile' on certain assignments.
 
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I Work in IT and see the IT job adverts quite a lot.

There are quite regular advertisements for junior web developers in leeds requiring no degree, offering a reasonable starting salary (usually about 13 to 14k) and targetting 18 year olds and looking for somebody they can train up / mold into a good developer.

As already echo'd there arent many jobs in this sort of field that require a degree. I currently work for a contractor to the NHS, supporting a hosted data centre that has something like 10 % of the countries medical records on. As a company we account for 50 % of all medical records, but the other 40 % of the country hosts them on servers on site, rather than using our hosted solutions.

We've got some here with degrees, but we've also got some (like me) that came straight from college / A levels.

Qualifications arent that important, its experience. And the way to get that is for somebody to give you a chance, give you that first job and get you trained and know how to do the job. Thats the key.

have a look on www.cwjobs.co.uk www.reed.co.uk and see what sort of jobs are going in your area.
 
Darg said:
I did the multimedia computing course in DLIADT, I assume it's a very similar course. Basically it covers a lot of the basics, a lot of stuff you'll probably know already. I went in there knowing a lot of paint shop pro, photoshop, blender and 3ds max so I didn't learn a lot on that front. My intention when I entered the course was to try and get into game design as an artist.

After the second year there though I realised I enjoyed programming far more then the art side. After getting my third year ordinary degree I left the course as it was just too general for me. The 4th year was even more theory based then the previous years had been whereas I really wanted to get some more programming knowledge.

After bouncing around for a couple of years I ended up doing software development in GMIT which was a great course, far more detail to it and much more to my liking. Now I've just finished a MSc. in Interactive Entertainment Technology in TCD and am hopefully on my way to a job programming in a games studio somewhere :)

So overall the multimedia course was a good thing for me as it showed me a broad range of areas in computing, it showed me that I was better suited as a programmer. But it is just not specific enough in any area to be of real use if you already know what you want to learn. You're not going to come out of it even after 4 years with enough programming knowledge to get a decent job, I know some people that went into programming jobs after it that they just weren't qualified for. I can only assume that the same would hold true for the graphics side of it.

The most in-depth thing we did was a bit of modelling in 3DS max, some programming and artwork in director and flash and a bit of photoshop.

If you're sure you want to do graphics then I'd say go and find a course more dedicated to that subject.
Click to expand...

Thanks. :)

I think that's what happened during my HND. Nearing the end of the course and looking at the progression from there, I realised that the Software Development end of things just wasn't for me. At least I know that now rather than a few years down the line.

toosepin said:
Very reasonable. As Darg mentioned the time would also be useful for you finding your preferred niche in the industry and working out what you prefer/end up being strongest at.

Regarding the course, most likely (from my experience with MM degrees) you wont directly do much PHP, you'll probably be taught plenty of Java (if you have a module called Programming then this is almost a guarantee) which you use as a step-up for gettinig into other languages such as PHP so it is still a good thing.

A warning about placements though; spots seem to be very trim nowadays and I know plenty of students who ended up having to skip the YII sandwich plan and do a 3 year back to back BSc. If you have connections or get in there early enough then you may be lucky to get a placement but it really depends on how much effort you put into getting one.

EDIT:

As above, the degree is quite generic and you wont be fine-tuned in many specific areas such as graphic design / programming etc but what you come out with skill and interest-wise will depend entirely on how you develop yourself whilst on the course and 'go the extra mile' on certain assignments.
Click to expand...

OK thanks. I'll have to have a look for more graphic design orientated courses. None quite so specialised with the UU so I'll have to look to the likes of Liverpool I guess. :)


MrLOL said:
I Work in IT and see the IT job adverts quite a lot.

There are quite regular advertisements for junior web developers in leeds requiring no degree, offering a reasonable starting salary (usually about 13 to 14k) and targetting 18 year olds and looking for somebody they can train up / mold into a good developer.

As already echo'd there arent many jobs in this sort of field that require a degree. I currently work for a contractor to the NHS, supporting a hosted data centre that has something like 10 % of the countries medical records on. As a company we account for 50 % of all medical records, but the other 40 % of the country hosts them on servers on site, rather than using our hosted solutions.

We've got some here with degrees, but we've also got some (like me) that came straight from college / A levels.

Qualifications arent that important, its experience. And the way to get that is for somebody to give you a chance, give you that first job and get you trained and know how to do the job. Thats the key.

have a look on www.cwjobs.co.uk www.reed.co.uk and see what sort of jobs are going in your area.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I know what you mean. :)

I really need to learn some of the more advanced coding languages and such though as I'm finding it difficult to teach myself. I've taught myself the likes of HTML and CSS but those are the basics. I guess I'll need to find a course which will be more focused on the area I want rather than a generalised area as advised in here.

Thanks guys, all very much appreciated and helpful.
 
I did a a similar course at Northumbria, it ended up being studying aload of different multimedia applications and being told to go through the tutorials etc, then being set an arty type of project most of the time, for a BSc.
As far as I am aware about 5 people at most out of 25-30 on the course fell straight into the industry, and even then making flash gambling games isnt really what you're after from a scan of your post.
Multimedia courses from what I have seen are too art dependant, better off looking for an actual video games course somewhere or doing more programming orientated.

Doing multimedia is just going to give you a very 'broad' and expensive portfolio, jack of all trades master of none.
 
skippi90 said:
Does this sound like a more suitable course?

http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/58176.htm

As far as the various courses and their use in the real world go, I'm not too clued in. Will need to have a word with the careers advisor in college at some point.
Click to expand...

If graphic design is what you want to do then it looks like a great course :) You wont get any experience in code though, possibly a bit of basic HTML and maybe ActionScript.
 
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