Who has a Computer Science Degree?

Neb

Neb

Neb

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To those studying computer science (or have already graduated), what do you think of the course? Enjoy it? What were your job prospects like after?

I'm asking because I'm planning on studying for a computer science degree at sheffield this september but I still dont know if its really for me.
 
Neb said:
To those studying computer science (or have already graduated), what do you think of the course? Enjoy it? What were your job prospects like after?

I'm asking because I'm planning on studying for a computer science degree at sheffield this september but I still dont know if its really for me.
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The degree was interesting and very enjoyable. I have no idea about job prospects personally as I am working on a PhD, but my friends are doing just fine, although some patience after graduation is required. The downside was spending longs hours in front of a computer monitor. If computers are your hobby, prepare to find a new pastime.

Did you not go to open days/interviews to get a chance to find out if it would suit you?

Stephen.
 
The first year was mathsy and boring, lots of people dropped out. I just spent the year drinking lots of cheap year and just scraped through to the second year. Second year was better, but I still didn't take it that seriously. Wasn't a fan of the course till the 3rd year, when I started doing quite well. Ended up with a 2.1, graduating in 2004 at Manchester Uni.

Been an accountant with the biggest of the big four since then ;), so prospect are good. May go back into IT eventually. I want my ACA first though.
 
In all honesty, at least 80% of what I've learned I've never used since, and except for the entry requirements I could have easily done the job I'm doing now without. This may just be me though - I pick up computer stuff relatively easily - to the point where I've been known to correct lecturers' mistakes. :o

University did pretty much land me the job I've got now, so I'm not saying it wasn't worth it.
 
Comp sci at Bristol and loving it. I agree with the first paragraph or so of that article. Too many people do comp sci because they don't know what they want to do and they like playing with computers. And they don't know what it actually is. Which comes to the next problem. Comp sci seems to be very different at different unis.

I was under the impression that Computer Science was "To learn how to program good... and become a super l33t h4x0R!!". As I soon found out this was not the case at all.
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This I disagree with. It does teach you to be a good programmer. But being a good programmer does not mean knowing every language under the sun. A good programmer can learn a new language in a couple of days. What's important is that you understand the concepts, which generally is what computer science teaches.
 
i am in the first year of a computer science course at imperial college london. i am really enjoying it, however there is a lot of maths involved. my course involves logic (natural deduction, propositional and predicate logic), maths methods (vectors, matricies, differentiation, series, sequences), discrete maths (sets and functions etc), programming (abstract data types, java, haskell, programming in general), hardware (how memory works, how the cpu works), reasoning about programs (checking for correctness of programs, proving programs work), graphics (the mathematics of graphics, and little bit of opengl), and databases (basically a little more than A-level computing!). [the bits in brackets are what i have mainly covered so far]
It is quite a hard course, im not sure what sheffield is like, but imperial work you hard!
there are good job prospects afterwards as you can go into many specialised fields. but you have to like computers and learning about how they work!

hope you enjoy it if you go for it

daven
 
daven1986 said:
i am in the first year of a computer science course at imperial college london. i am really enjoying it, however there is a lot of maths involved. my course involves logic (natural deduction, propositional and predicate logic), maths methods (vectors, matricies, differentiation, series, sequences), discrete maths (sets and functions etc), programming (abstract data types, java, haskell, programming in general), hardware (how memory works, how the cpu works), reasoning about programs (checking for correctness of programs, proving programs work), graphics (the mathematics of graphics, and little bit of opengl), and databases (basically a little more than A-level computing!). [the bits in brackets are what i have mainly covered so far]
It is quite a hard course, im not sure what sheffield is like, but imperial work you hard!
there are good job prospects afterwards as you can go into many specialised fields. but you have to like computers and learning about how they work!

hope you enjoy it if you go for it

daven
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Sounds almost identical to the Manchester syllabus.
 
CS degree here from Brighton Uni. Finished in 2004 with a 2:1.

Liked it, I went more to the Hardware side rather than programming.

Got a great job straight after.
 
Berserker said:
In all honesty, at least 80% of what I've learned I've never used since, and except for the entry requirements I could have easily done the job I'm doing now without.
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Same for me, I've got a Software Engineering degree which is basically the same as a standard CS degree with a few specialised modules.

Most of my computer knowledge is self taught and find it easier to pick up stuff hands on rather than text book first. But as Berserker mentioned a degree can be the key to getting your foot in the door, then from there it's down to you.
 
Sounds like Bristol too except we don't do graphics and databases. We get to do open units in the first year so you can spend about a third of your time doing something completely unrelated if you want. They start you off on C here though and then go on to do java and haskell in the second semester.
 
I will have a compsci degree in 8 weeks time. I've found it very enjoyable.

A lot of stuff we learn isn't really ever going to be useful to me (all the stuff we learn IS useful and used in the real world, but obviously unless you want to write a compiler courses on compiler theory wont be particularly useful to you in the future for example), but its qutie theoretically interesting and challenging.

Its also very diverse. You will probably have a lot of choice on what you do. For my dissertation I developed a system to predict the outcome of greyhound races and place bets on them, so it can be quite fun!

Who is compsci for:
==============
I would say anyone who involves solving logic puzzles, enjoys working out how things work, possibly with an interest in engineering.
Compsci will NOT teach you how to program (unless you go to one of the 'worse' universities). They might teach you a little, but as said in the link it will be 15% or less if you go to a good university.

Job prospects:
==============
Well I've been offered a 30k job (will probably do a Phd instead though), which is good but probably well above average for a compsci graduate. Job prospects are good as long as you go to a good uni.
 
To the people who have done/are doing a comp sci degree...

Would you recommend doing a Bsc/Msc or PHD. Ideally I want to do a Bsc as it means I can get in and out of uni as quick as possible and hopefully with not too much debt, but is this likely to put me at a disadvantage when it comes to job hunting as I will up against Msc/PHD students?
 
Unconditional said:
To the people who have done/are doing a comp sci degree...

Would you recommend doing a Bsc/Msc or PHD. Ideally I want to do a Bsc as it means I can get in and out of uni as quick as possible and hopefully with not too much debt, but is this likely to put me at a disadvantage when it comes to job hunting as I will up against Msc/PHD students?
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I did a BSc and worked well for me. I was under the same opinion of being in and out of uni asap. I loved my time there, but 4 years would have been too long, and would not have made any difference to getting the job I have now.
 
Lagz said:
I will have a compsci degree in 8 weeks time. I've found it very enjoyable.

A lot of stuff we learn isn't really ever going to be useful to me (all the stuff we learn IS useful and used in the real world, but obviously unless you want to write a compiler courses on compiler theory wont be particularly useful to you in the future for example), but its qutie theoretically interesting and challenging.

Its also very diverse. You will probably have a lot of choice on what you do. For my dissertation I developed a system to predict the outcome of greyhound races and place bets on them, so it can be quite fun!

Who is compsci for:
==============
I would say anyone who involves solving logic puzzles, enjoys working out how things work, possibly with an interest in engineering.
Compsci will NOT teach you how to program (unless you go to one of the 'worse' universities). They might teach you a little, but as said in the link it will be 15% or less if you go to a good university.

Job prospects:
==============
Well I've been offered a 30k job (will probably do a Phd instead though), which is good but probably well above average for a compsci graduate. Job prospects are good as long as you go to a good uni.
Click to expand...

Which university are you at?
 
I did a computer science degree a couple of years back. I found most of it pretty boring as at least 75% covered database design and programming which I wasn't really interested in so struggled.

From the start I knew I wanted to specialise in system administration and found the modules I was interested in pretty basic and didn't really offer the chance to go much further. The module on computer hardware was 6 weeks talking about of hardware developments from 286's up to P4's (isa, pci, agp, etc) and then writing a report on what hardware we had in our home pc's. Easy to get a good mark when I went into the bus speeds and voltages I’ve altered to overclock it :)

I think it's a good course to learn a bit about everything, I doubt it'll turn you into a c++ or unix god but gives a good foundation to build upon afterwards.
 
I did Computer Science at Leicester and graduated last year. The degree has certainly helped me in my day to day job. There was a lot of maths involved in the course along the lines of descrete maths and various algorithms. On the whole the most handy part was being made aware of software development procedures (ie the system life cycle). This was handy when placed on my first project and a mountain of paperwork was presented infront of me to read.

It was also handy being given a grounding in good programming techniques. Although we focused on C++/Java I have found the grounding I got extremely useful when it came to learning a new language.

As for the end prospects, well I got a job :) The competition to get into IT placements is fierce and you really need to know your stuff. Although saying that most grad jobs seem to be hard to get now.
 
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