DC121 Computer Applications Peeps!

Jamezzyboyoo

Hey Readers,

Was wondering if any of y'all gonna be doing this course? Cannot wait for it! You can introduce yourself here and what not? :P Might be helpful for us first years!!

Peregrine

There's a person in the first years' thread doing CA.

Drezden

Yeah I'm doing Computer Apps as well, should be great crack. I would love to skip forward four weeks and just get started!

Jamezzyboyoo

Awh same here! Had a look at 2 computer labs today, they look fairly good! Freshers week will be mental!

Drezden

Haha defo man should be class, manys a session to be had! Can't wait to see what they have going on over the freshers fortnight, they should be posting the info any day now. Are the computer labs mostly linux?

kqs

Here computer apps!! I either can't wait:P

Jamezzyboyoo

Awh sthap man! Its gonna be epic! I was in there yesterday but couldn't go in because there was exams on, but Im not sure if they're Linux! And at kqs's suggestion, ima make us an FB group? :P whacha think? :P

Drezden

Yeah man defo go for it! Have you joined the DCU freshers group on FB? If you scroll down a good bit on that page there is like 12 students who have said they are also for computer apps, add them too

Jamezzyboyoo

Jaysus I'll get onto that right away!! have the debs today so I'll have her goin fully tomorrow

Drezden

Which the group or your date to the debs? Haha sound, enjoy lad!

Jamezzyboyoo

Ahaha you divil!! both if I'm lucky

Drezden

Just don't do what I did and you'll be grand. I spent the limo ride necking champagne glasses of sambuca and after-shock blue, as you can imagine that didn't end well....missed half of the grad spewin up! But it ended well, sobered up and somehow managed to pull my date, twas a great night for the most part.

kqs

Can't find that group :P or, are u talking about this one ? : w w w . facebook . com / groups / DCUFreshers2013/

Iopu

I'm repeating first year because I slacked and failed some modules. Message me if you want to ask me anything.
The computers in the labs run both windows 7 and Linux.

Drezden

Cheers Cal!

Silorn

Entering fourth year CA this year if anyone has any questions.

For labs, the OS used depends on your lecturer, our first year lecturer for first semester preferred Linux so all of our labs were in Linux, the year after a different lecturer took over the module and went with mostly Windows. You'll be using both over the course of the year between different modules. Main programming language will be Java if they haven't changed anything if you're looking to get a head start.

Not sure if the DCU CA group will be made for you or the class has to make it themselves though, all three previous years have different names though.

Also, join every society you have an interest in, trust me, I regret not joining in first year!

Drezden

Aye, I've a few questions for you Silorn.
What was your intra like? How did you find 2nd and 3rd year in terms of difficulty?

Silorn

I'm still on my INTRA placement actually (working for SAP Ireland as a back-end developer). The part of SAP I'm working for is great, the people are extremely friendly and helpful and the working hours are fairly flexible - must be in from 10 till 3, make up the rest of your hours however you want.

It's really different to anything you do during college, everything is planned very carefully, each change is incremental and goes through source control (something that isn't even mentioned in college, which is absurd) and you really feel like you're part of a team working towards something. The beginning sort of sucks everywhere from what I've heard, lots of on-boarding and learning how everything is laid out, but once we were integrated into teams it became a lot more interesting. I'm lucky though, I've heard of some companies being pretty bad in terms of INTRA placement, doing 4-5 months of training and hardly doing any meaningful work.

I'd say when you get to the stage where you're being pressured into applying for INTRA places, talk to the 4th years about their experiences on the jobs you're applying for because I know some people are very unhappy with their placement, while others are extremely happy.

As far as second and third year... The programming side of the degree came very naturally to me, and the vast majority of the degree is that, programming in a way that is very logical regardless of the language. If you keep up with the programming elements of the course and don't completely ignore the other theory type modules you shouldn't have too much difficulty, Linear Algebra in second year is also where quite a few people fail regularly, but the level of that is about the same as higher level Leaving Cert maths.

I'd say the most important thing is to realize the work throughout the year does matter. Do the lab work and find friends to do anything together so that you can help each other learn, the lecturer won't always come in the next day and give you the right answer. Continuous Assessment is a big part of some modules and even for modules where it might be worth 20% the material is usually very relevant to the exams.

Sorry if that was long-winded!

Iopu

Thanks for that Silorn I found that really interesting.

Jamezzyboyoo

Just made us a group 2014-18 (search DCU Computer Applications 14-18) or pm for link! so add yourself and the peeps in it!

Awh that sounds deadly Silorn! I've worked in the SAP ITSD in Dublin already for a while, is a deadly company to get in with! Are you in the waterside building yourself?