Computer Science : The Alternative View  Assumptions Academic Progress is all important. Academic Progress is all important. Details of courses, modules & content are on the web. You’ve heard it all before. Details of courses, modules & content are on the web. You’ve heard it all before. You graduate with a good degree! You graduate with a good degree!  What gets you the job you want over the next person? You do! You do! Your interests and abilities Your interests and abilities Your personality, your interpersonal skills, communication skills, sense of humour Your personality, your interpersonal skills, communication skills, sense of humour

Key Events in Our Degrees  A supportive, friendly environment  A programme of residential, skill-development weekends in the first two years  A realistic industrial computing experience in the second year  Optional sandwich placement after second year  The opportunity to explore YOUR computing interests in the final year

Fresher’s Week  Sunday-Wednesday Halls & accommodation Halls & accommodation  Guilds clubs and socs, welfare clubs and socs, welfare  Information services library and computing library and computing  Effective learning  Dept precise description of module options advice - general and personal where people and things are  Other departments modules

Departmental student support  Group tutorials with personal tutor in first year  Personal Tutor in other years  Final year project supervisor (1:1)  Year Co-ordinator (senior personal tutor)  Advisor for academic choices  Demonstrators in practicals  Advisory service  Lecturers

First year weekend Team Building  Interpersonal Skills  Team Building  Personal Challenge

Second Year Weekend Addressing Employability  Interview technique sessions  Mock interviews with top employers  Problem solving sessions to enhance teamwork

Second Year Group Project  Groups of 8 to 10  Requirements for an application are provided  Emphasis on producing quality software Not just working, but maintainable, reliable, usable Not just working, but maintainable, reliable, usable  Acceptance tests at end of project  Example projects: Grobbits, JoggleCube

The Year in Employment Between years 2 and 3  Obligatory for Engineers & “with language” Highly recommended for other degrees Highly recommended for other degrees  Paid  Help with finding prospective employers  Varied set of contacts activity, size, location activity, size, location  Contact and assistance during the year

Final Year Individual Project  You choose a project that you are interested in  Staff advise on suitability, and supervisor is assigned  Meet regularly, but you do the technical work, and produce software  Allows you to explore your interests and get experience matching jobs you want

Example Final Year Projects  Graphic system for teaching Brownian motion  Intelligent FAQS systems  Central database talking to Palm devices or mobile phones Portable project management Portable project management Mobile fitness tracker Mobile fitness tracker Mobile allergy database Mobile allergy database

Work of our undergraduates (2 years after graduation)  78 % - Technical jobs. Jobs with titles like “Web developer” or “Software engineer”. Spending most of their time building systems.  8% - Further education. Gone on to pursue a further course (MSc, PhD).  14% Computing-related. In all cases, the job still had a technical element, e.g. quality assurance or teaching

Typical employers of our undergraduates  Computer Engineer, Sony  Business Analyst, Hitachi Europe  Analyst Programmer, HSBC  Web Developer, Legal & General Insurance  Systems Programmer, Open World Internet  Systems Engineer, Control Techniques  Support Analyst, UBS Warburg  Computer Programmer, Logica  Systems Analyst, Powys County Council

Top 10 things about our undergrad degrees (10 to 6) 10. Wide selection of computing degrees that you can move freely between. 9. Staff with significant experience of the computer industry, able to pass that experience on to students. 8. Over £4 million spent on high-powered equipment over the last three years, and more to come. 7. Enthusiastic staff willing to help you with your problems 6. Aber is a cheap place to be an undergrad

Top 10 things about our undergrad degrees (5 to 1) 5. Aber is a fun, safe place to be an undergrad 4. Our practically-oriented degrees make you apply what you learn 3. Our students are able to be effective immediately with the skills learned here 2. Our students get good, highly paid jobs in industry 1. We are rated number one in Wales by students for teaching

Thank you for listening  Questions?