Computer Science

By Neda Mostafavi

Published: 15 August 2004

What do you come out with? BSc or MEng.

Why do it? You've been playing with computers for years and are enthralled with the subject. Plus you've sussed out the job prospects and the rapid career development and fancy earning megabucks.

What's it about? Software engineering. Understanding how computers are built, which is different from IT which is focussed on understanding how to use various programmes. Dr. Frank King of Cambridge says these principles are not only relevant for today's technology. After three or four years you will become a professional software engineer. At Southampton, there's a strong maths component and an emphasis on professional issues - eg law, business ethics - as well as on transferable skills such as communicating well. Kent at Canterbury has a BSc in computer science and a MComp which lasts four years and gives you a year at another European university. At Glasgow you combine computing with two other subjects for the first two years. One of those has to be maths.

How long is a degree? Three; or four years if you are at a Scottish university or you are doing a MEng or you take a year out to work in industry.

What are the students like? Mostly men. At Kent 15-20 per cent are women. At Manchester it's 10 per cent. Southampton has fewer than 5 per cent women. Many from overseas, around 40 per cent at Cambridge. They have their own computers, are highly numerate and don't mind hard work. Some are geeks, but their geekdom is knocked out by being taught transferable skills.

How is it packaged? At Manchester, two-thirds is examined and one-third is project work. At Southampton, 60 per cent of the course is examined, 40 per cent course assessed. At Glasgow and Kent the ratio is 80:20. Cambridge is around 25 per cent coursework and 75 per cent exam, with the dissertation counting for coursework in the third year. York has 60 per cent exam, 25 per cent practical open project work and 15per cent large project.

How cool is it? Still pretty uncool despite large starting salaries, the dot.com revolution and Martha Lane Fox. But it's a popular degree. Manchester receives 2,500 applications for just over 200 places.

What A-levels do you need? At Kent you can get in without A-level maths. Instead, you study extra maths at university. A-level maths is compulsory at Manchester and Southampton. Anything else goes, though Manchester prefers a science A-level. Cambridge requires maths, further maths and a physical science. York requires Maths and also encourages further maths and a physical science subject (physics, electronics or chemistry).

What grades? BBB at Southampton and Manchester; BBC at Kent; BCC at Glasgow (two of those have to be science subjects) or BBBB at Highers (two of them sciences). AAA at Cambridge though successful students usually manage four grade As. AAB for York with As in both maths and the physical science.

Will you be interviewed? Yes at Kent, York, Cambridge and Southampton. Not usually at Manchester, and not at Glasgow.

Will it keep you off the dole? Yes. Graduates join software development companies, earning starting salaries averaging Â£22,000. Cambridge claims to have very entrepreneurial students with start-ups being a common path for their graduates; millionaires are not uncommon. The best join top-notch firms such as investment bank Goldman Sachs or Andersen Consulting and can earn Â£35,000 straight from university, more than a senior lecturer. Work in computing, engineering, management and finance is also quite common. But beware, the hours can be very long. Some prefer to work for small companies.

What do students say? Tom Wilkie, 19, studying at Cambridge. "The research here is really special, you become familiar with the cutting edge in the field."

Keke Arif, 19, who is studying at Edinburgh. "I like the programming side which is the emphasis of the first year. It was mainly coursework-based and we got to program a maze game and play on it which I really enjoyed."

Where's best for teaching? Swansea, Imperial, Cambridge, Exeter, Kent, Manchester, Oxford, Southampton, Teesside, Warwick and York all scored excellent ratings. Bell College of Technology, Dundee, Glasgow Caledonian, Heriot-Watt, Napier and St. Andrews were rated commendable.

Where's best for research? Cambridge, Imperial College, Manchester, Southampton, York and Edinburgh received a tip-top 5*. Birmingham, Bristol, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Royal Holloway, Sheffield, Sussex, UCL, Warwick, Glasgow, St.Andrews, Swansea and Cardiff received a 5; Bath, Birkbeck, Bradford, Brighton, City, De Montfort, Durham, East Anglia, Essex, Exeter, Greenwich, Hertfordshire, Kent, King's, Leicester, Umist, Queen Mary, Reading, South Bank, Aberdeen, Dundee, Heriot-Watt, Swansea, Queen's Belfast and Ulster received 4.

Where's the cutting edge? Southampton is big on multimedia, artificial intelligence and software engineering; Glasgow in distributed systems, information retrieval, communication and control systems and human computer interaction. Cambridge and Manchester in bio-informatics (the human genome project) and Manchester in low power mobile processes: that's making sure mobile phones work. Kent specialises in networks and distributed systems, software and systems engineering and has a computer science education research group. York in bio-inspired computing which looks at the way biological natural systems work and uses them as inspiration for computer systems as well as quantum computing which uses principles of quantum theory.

Who are the stars? Professor David de Roure, for advanced knowledge technologies, and Professor Mark Nixon, for automatic gait recognition, both of Southampton. Professor Steve Furber, Professor John Gurd, high performance parallel computing, and Professor Carole Goble, multimedia and databases, all at Manchester. Professor Malcolm Atkinson, grid computing, Professor Keith van Rijsbergen, information retrieval, and Professor Muffy Calder, applied formal methods, all at Glasgow. At Cambridge, Professor Andy Hopper specialises in communications engineering. Professor Alan Burns, a specialist in real time system design at York.

Related courses: You can do computing with virtually any other subject at Glasgow University.