BSc (Hons) in Computing Science (Part-time)

neonman

Looking at doing the above course in Griffith on a part-time basis. Anybody on here currently doing the course or have finished it?

What do you think of it? Looking for any feedback good or bad.

Thanks,
Neon

neonman

No takers ?

Feckless Rogue

I'm also looking at doing this - would be great to get any feedback!

Fremen

It's a fairly standard CS course. One thing I would say is that the choices are a little limited. Compare with the full-time course offered in UCD:
https://sisweb.ucd.ie/usis/w_sm_web_inf_viewer_banner.show_major?p_term_code=201000&p_cao_code=DN030&p_major_code=CSS1

An example of a typical assignment would be to take a tree traversal algortihm and impliment it in Java. CS degrees are more maths-y and abstract than many people are prepared for, so watch out for that.

When I was in college, the best guys knew a load of stuff that wasn't covered in lectures. If you want to be any good, you need to do outside reading.
http://slashdot.org/
Is a good place to start, but if you want a job as a programmer after the course, you really need to learn for yourself and to work on your own projects outside of college. The first thing anyone will ask you in a job interview is "what projects have you worked on?". Without significant programming experience, you may end up working in technical support, which is a bit of a dull job.

Edit:
Actually, there may not be enough maths courses. This may cause you to struggle if you decide to do an MSc afterwards, but shouldn't be a major issue if you just want to be a coder.

Feckless Rogue

Thanks a lot for that Fremen, great info! Did you actually do this course? Wasn't sure from your reply.

Fremen wrote: »

It's a fairly standard CS course. One thing I would say is that the choices are a little limited. Compare with the full-time course offered in UCD:
https://sisweb.ucd.ie/usis/w_sm_web_inf_viewer_banner.show_major?p_term_code=201000&p_cao_code=DN030&p_major_code=CSS1

Something like that would have been my first choice, but personally I've no option but to go part-time (or Open Uni). Actually Griffith was the most technical part-time CS degree I could find in Dublin - most of the others seem to have a large IT management element built in, e.g. the Trinity BSc(hons) & Diploma in Information Systems

An example of a typical assignment would be to take a tree traversal algortihm and impliment it in Java. CS degrees are more maths-y and abstract than many people are prepared for, so watch out for that.

This is useful to know, cheers.

When I was in college, the best guys knew a load of stuff that wasn't covered in lectures. If you want to be any good, you need to do outside reading.
http://slashdot.org/
Is a good place to start, but if you want a job as a programmer after the course, you really need to learn for yourself and to work on your own projects outside of college.

Any other resources you can recommend would be great! I'll try getting into Slashdot again - I always used to find wading through reams of comments offputting

On outside projects, would you happen to know of any open source projects that are beginner friendly (or would have particularly well documented/readable source code)?

The first thing anyone will ask you in a job interview is "what projects have you worked on?". Without significant programming experience, you may end up working in technical support, which is a bit of a dull job.

Heh - which is why I'm trying to move on from it luckily I've a bit of room to build stuff with my current employer (although of course I'm limited by ability), but yes I would be keen to avoid a chicken & egg situation...

Edit:
Actually, there may not be enough maths courses. This may cause you to struggle if you decide to do an MSc afterwards, but shouldn't be a major issue if you just want to be a coder.

Again if you know any particularly good resources/texts on this I'd be interested to know about them (I have Mathematics and Physics for Programmers which tbh I found fairly dense)

Fremen

I didn't do it myself, I was just making general observations from having done a 50/50 maths/computer science degree.

I'm not sure what the best way to go about getting involved with open source software is, I never actually did it myself. One thing you might look into is Google summer of code, which would look pretty excellent on your CV. Try to figure out what kind of skills they're looking for, and focus on building those up.
You could always ask on the boards open source forum.

I was really just trying to get across the idea that if you have the mindset of "Don't just sit back and wait to be taught things", you'll probably go far.

http://www.khanacademy.org/ is meant to be excellent for self-teaching maths, it's probably a good place to start.

Feckless Rogue

^ again all solid info - SOC is a great idea. Thanks again for all your suggestions!

Hope I haven't brought this thread too much OT - would definitely love to get more thought/feedback on this course, especially with regard to study hours expected, workload, professional certification and how well the course prepares for a career.

neonman

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I took a place in a different Uni as Griffith never got back to me. I applied for the part time course over 2 months ago. They only rang me today asking if I was still interested :-O

Feckless Rogue

Hi neonman,

Well that's interesting... I was told only today that the course won't be going ahead this year due to lack of numbers - I had already registered and lectures were due to begin on Tuesday week.

I was going to vent here but there hasn't been many replies to the thread and didn't think it would do much good anyway...

I'd be very interested to know where you're going (off thread if you prefer) as I now have to try to find a similar part time course at the 11th hour... bloody fuming as I was really looking forward to this course :mad: