Systems Architects

[Lightsabre]

Ds doesn't know what he wants to do yet (just going into Year 9 so not unusual). He has been talking about system architecture as an area he's interested in but he's not doing Computer Science as a GCSE. Does anyone know what sort of further education/higher education pathway we'd need to be considering. I'm assuming he'd need to be looking at Computer Science as an A Level with maths and then a CS degree? He's also interested in cyber security. He has limited coding experience.

Computing Science at A level isn’t required to access a Computing Science degree, look at the entrance requirements specified by some of the universities your DS may like to attend. Maths and Physics would be good subjects at A levels. Maths is probably mandatory for many courses.

Also look at degree apprenticeships there are excellent ones out there. There are opportunities to get coding experience through summer schools, also look at on-line resources many of which are free.

• Maths is probably mandatory for many courses.

It will be on the good ones, and further maths may be desirable. Maths, fm and physics keeps doors open for computing, maths, physics and most branches of engineering.

CS degree may an obvious choice but I think some of the cyber security types are mathematicians.

It would be a good idea for him to get some coding experience - fortunately it's one of the areas where there's loads of ways kids can do this.

He is the right age, I think, to look into Smallpeice courses - DD did one which was, iirc, robotics and cyber type of thing, it was sponsored by GCHQ and Qinetic.

Look at CyberFirst - sponsored by GCHQ

But seriously, he might just change his mind 8 times between now and then. Tis healthy

Thank you and yes, his interests could change. He was inspired by the stalls at the Big Bang Science Fair including the GCHQ one (first person to crack their code!)

Senior exec. in the tech industry here:

In a nutshell, nobody in industry cares about A-levels one you've been to a university. So pick whichever ones unis prefer.

In terms of degrees: yes, computer science is an obvious choice. Or any computing related engineering degree, too. I've also known some stellar architects with degrees in physics, mathematics and even one with an MSc in chemistry. I'm not personally much of a fan of "soft tech" degrees such as "Web Computing" and that kind of thing. Not saying they categorically can't produce good grads, just that - on average and in my limited personal experience only - they tend to produce fewer than, say, computer science, software engineering or similar, more core tech degree courses.

Then, after graduation, basically you don't normally get to be an architect straight away. A typical career path would be something along the lines of developer > development team lead > technical architect > enterprise architect. Architecture tends to require experience that you'll usually get by designing and implementing systems from scratch for a while.

Having said that, a good architect is a gem and a great architect people like myself would be willingvto spend their weight in gold on. It's a great career choice. Just not an instant satisfaction one.

So pick whichever ones unis prefer
And make sure they're ones he enjoys as well, otherwise what's the point?