Computer Science course

Iceboy

anyone else heading into this course in september? Or anyone who is already doing it? Do you bring your own laptop in or do they have computers? And what about the timetable and hours? Will be be in 5 days a week 9-4 thing?

donfarrell

Hey
I'm going into third year in the comp science course,
For your first question, you can bring your own laptop if you wish, actually, I'd advise it as the computers are pure terrible in the place, the only downside to bringing in your laptop is that the wifi is just as bad so unless you have a vodafone,o2, meteor etc dongle your stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea

Timetable wise, its really a matter of luck, for example, in my first year I had a day off in both semesters (wednesday then a friday ) then in sencond year i was in every day, sometimes all day from 9-6, sometimes just for one class (which annoying as I live in the city center :P)

Also first years start the 10th of september I think :P
Hope this helped

P.S Try and pass all your subjects first time, eventhough some might be boring or hard. Because there is literally nothing worse than to have to repeat them in summer

KonFusion

donfarrell wrote: »

P.S Try and pass all your subjects first time, eventhough some might be boring or hard. Because there is literally nothing worse than to have to repeat them in summer

ATTENTION ALL FIRST YEARS!

LISTEN TO THIS MAN!!!!!

Best piece of advice to first years imo. Repeats are a pain in the arse.

Also run a search on this forum for your course code and you'll find several threads with info. Most people on this forum would be CS students.

Going into 3rd year CS too.

Would agree with donfarrell/Kon.

Also, try not to miss many lectures, or you'll be screwed!

Java and networking are big parts of the course (do some each semester), so try give them a little bit more attention the something like Computer Systems.

As for bringing in laptop, I didn't in first year, and rarely brought it in, in second year. Some of the computer are painfully slow to start, but some are fine if they're already booted up (most are).

Best of luck! If you need any help, post here, I'm sure one of us could help!

brendanL

Welcome aboard! ..


Going into 4th year myself, I got a laptop around second year and I've used it for everything since. It's not essential, but it can make your life a little easier.
I'd suggest you get to grips with Dropbox.. and use it instead of a usb pen drive. They break often, and work lost is a pain.

It backs stuff up.. and if you occasionally use lab pc... laptop ... then desktop at home.. it stops all the fragmentation of work and old version crap you have to deal with otherwise. here's a linky to it https://www.dropbox.com/

There is no need in 1st year to have a laptop... there is way more pc's in labs then people. You can get one for handyness sake, but's it not essential.
I'd wait until your in.. see the college for a few months.. see how things are going.. if you have big breaks and need to work on a project and library pc's are full / no free labs to work on it.. Then maybe a laptop would be a good idea. But in 1st year that kind of predicament is unlikely ;D

Personally I've never had much of a problem with itb's wireless? I've heard people complain all the time but whenever I've used my laptop in a lab I've had a signal same as the other lads in the class. At the start of the year I remember it was crazy slow, but after a week or so... it was fine, I've hit 10mb's a second downloading 'things' on it, but the norm is about 2-3. A dongle is definitely not necessary.

Speaking from personal experience the times in first year were not great for us. Big gap.. sometimes of 2-3hrs between classes left people really tired by the end of the day and it was hard to pay attention ... or have the willpower to stay all day to attend things. I cannot stress enough how much your doing yourself a favour by doing what's already been said and attending everything. Labs and lectures, you don't even have to work especially hard. Just go to them and everything will be fine.

If you have such a gap in your timetable, the best thing to do is find something to do for those gaps to amuse yourself. The best thing to amuse yourself with... ;D is join a society, there are literally loads in itb, one for everyone's interests I'd say at this stage... and if one doesn't cover what you like.. you can set it up. It's not too hard to get the ball rolling on a new society ;D and you'll find the majority of the present societies are only too happy to discuss how to run things with you. Also... societies are great for finding people in college that have similar interests to you ;D if you like computing it's something you have in common with your class mates.. but if you like airsoft.. all of a sudden you now know a lot more people if you join it's society... basically they're great ways to make friends.. and to find out about future years of your course by talking to the 'old guys' such as myself, who without a society you'd probably never of spoken too.

So that's the social aspect taken care of... as well as the gaps,

Ok classes! I'm going to assume you haven't read any of the previous threads on computing and say basically
you do a lecture where they tell you something.. and then you do a lab where you implement what was just shown to you.
It's all very straight forward. However each week generally builds on the previous hence why missing a lab or lecture can be such a problem and is best avoided.
Everything starts off from the very basics and rapidly accelerates towards what they want to teach you. This means someone who hasn't touched a pc before will be fine and someone whose used to them will fly though the first lecture or so.

You don't have to love computers.... but it helps. Let's be honest... your doing computing.. your going to end up working on a project in front of a screen a lot.
Time in front of screen differs, in first year I'd say it was about 3hrs tops a day with more time when projects start happening... but these days it's usually nearly all day.. then there's my gaming piled in on top of that.
So if you get serious eye strain from a pc screen already, there's glasses you can get that prevent it from being so severe on some people.. I actually haven't met a single person that needed this.. but they do exist. Also... use proper lighting at all times... when your in it for the long haul it's best to avoid bad habits.

Hours wise in college, anything from starting at 9 to finishing at 6... but it wouldn't be work the whole way through.. there could be huge gaps.. or late starts / early finishes and so on.

Look out for the tall, short black haired eijit giving tours to freshers and ranting on about how awesome computer science peeps are on your first day in ^^ for that is I ;D