Which unis offer good Computer Science degrees?

[L1vewell]

Ds doing Maths, Computer Science and Psychology A levels. Done Cyber Elite summer school and other coding courses

The top courses( Oxbridge and Imperial)seem to want Further Maths which he could do but not sure he’d want to do 4 or drop psychology.

Which other courses have a good reputation for Computer Science?

What area of compsci is he most interested in? DS is into infosec - he chose to go to royal holloway alongside working p/t (distance) in threat intelligence. He enjoyed (ish) the course but decided to leave after three years instead of the planned four as he's found the course slow, he's learning more on the job and doesn't want to wait another year before getting stuck in. He started with maths/fm/physics AAA but quite a high skill level already (self taught, does lots of CTFs etc), and found the first year very basic with a large spread of prior knowledge in the cohort, with some students being quite skilled and some having very little knowledge. He has quite enjoyed the wider uni life in Egham though, there's not too much to do locally so the uni have quite a lot of organised sport/social stuff

Not sure re area yet.Beep which uni was that?

Bubbles re that uni guide are the courses ranked in best uni rating or best course rating?

Now going round the houses re FM. Trawled through lots of the courses and it only looks as if it would be an issue with Imperial. Some of the courses at Imperial look really good. Thing is the chances of him getting into Imperial( you need STEP and MAT along with your A*s ) would surely be slim as highly competitive. Bit worried re risking overall grades for entrance to a uni he probably wouldn’t get into even if he got all the other stuff. Would need to re think where he did his Alevels too.

No advice, but a few random thoughts.

1. Natural mathematicians often seem to enjoy FM maths more than they did GCSE maths and become more engaged. University level maths can become even better. Others, who may have been top of the class at GCSE, will hit their ceiling and struggle. There is advantage in being able to start FM as a fourth, and see how it goes. If a student enjoys it the work load is very manageable. If they are not, and need to carry on, it is no fun at all and a real slog. The variation in grades is wide and students who get A* in Maths can still end up with a C in FM.

1. It is worth looking at course content. Some courses which prefer but don't require FM, then cover the FM maths content very rapidly. DS claims they covered half a FM paper in a single (economics) lecture. Those without FM had to work pretty hard. DS was given the good advice that if he was aiming for a degree with a high maths content he should do as much at school as he could, where there was a slower pace and more support.

1. Observation suggests that if you take FM you are likely to get a better grade in maths that would otherwise be the case. FM papers are more advanced, so the Maths appears easier.

1. Anecdotally, A level psychology sounds interesting, but not everyone enjoys the course. The same applies to economics and other "new" subjects.

1. As you acknowledge in your OP, having FM opens more doors. There is still a long way to go. Keeping doors open is useful. For a very academic student, a strong University cohort can be a huge advantage. It promotes a learning is cool culture, and a good department will attract strong staff and visiting lecturers, and provide students with some extraordinary opportunities. But this can be at the expense of "the student experience". (DS loved the absence of pressure to be cool and to party. His friend at Imperial equally spent a lot of his time running a course related society which led to some really interesting things. But for many this is not what University is about.)

1. I would add UCL to the list of very strong departments. One of Imperial's strengths is the versatility of the degree, and range of second year options.

I think Edinburgh would be a good choice - the department is Informatics and specialises in AI and Cognitive Science (great for someone interested in psychology) as well as CS, and is internationally outstanding. FM not required because of 4 year degree structure - but contrary to what another poster said, I don’t think direct entry into 2nd year is allowed anymore. The 4 year structure also gives more flexibility in the first 2 years - e.g., I think he could actually study some psychology modules even though in doing a CS or Informatics degree.

FM is part of Mumsnet snobbishness alongside affinity towards Oxford and Cambridge, and wanting to know what is the 'best' course.

FM is never a requirement because many schools do not offer it. If a university wants it, eg UCL, they will have a two week course prior to starting.

FM just narrows down the profile of the student as invariabily they will be doing Mathematics, FM and Physics, which is basically 90% maths - boring.

Computer Science is a shortage subject and the govt wants to have more computer scientists. There is not a big risk in doing whatever course. I would suggest looking at the wider life of the university in question, rather than the course given that any computer science degree is a shoe-in to a good job.

My DD has firmed Nottingham and insuranced Queen Mary's. She was not interested in Edinburgh because her DSis is there. She did a summer course at Southampton and decided against it (because of the overall city/university rather than the course structure). Dundee was a contender for a while, but not easy to get to.

The complete university guide can be used for subjects. Overall ranking is just one aspect of the guide with the usual suspects at the top.

I always say look at grad employability. Who on these courses are getting jobs? Obviously CS is being studied to lead to employment so this is important. It’s a well paid grad job so you would want to see plenty of grads being employed or studying further. Then think about what university suits and where it is and whether DC will get in on a masters undergrad or not. What are the differences in entry qualifications? Do the employment stats vary between courses? Is narrowing down too early counter productive? Would doing a masters in a specialism be better and would be change his mind anyway? Often DC find new areas of interest on the best courses. They don’t know everything at 17/18 and should not necessarily expect to have the same interests as parents.

For CS I’d also suggest Manchester. One of the best for the subject

Here’s the top ones in the Complete University Guide.

Crafty, if that was a dig at me, I think you misread my post.

FM is great if you enjoy maths, but grim if you dont. No snobbery there. Quite a lot of computer scientists do enjoy maths, possibly more than they might psychology, which sounds great but can also prove a slog for different reasons. I also suspect that a high proportion of students on the most selective courses will have taken 4 A levels including FM, as four is not such a burden if you are talented at maths. There is no reason to assume that they are any more narrow than those taking three. (You just need to look at average points per student for somewhere like Cambridge on on the CUG guide. )

As far as I see, it is never about best, but rather about fit. Courses vary a lot. I am a landlord and one of my tenants is studying some version of computer science at the sort of University that is regularly sneered at here. He has a job lined up, no problem. It is a popular practical course and local employers approach students rather than vice versa. However he will leave with a different skill set and different career path than if he had gone to one of the more academic Universities.

There is a tremendous MN snobbery about the student experience, as if young people who see University as a chance to focus on their subject are somewhat lacking. Again it's about fit. For some young people it is a bit of a relief, not having to worry about popularity, but simply be able to hang our with people with similar interests.

I am not sure tables take you very far. It is such a wide subject, and those on a course that interests them will report high student satisfaction, whilst others, perhaps studying computing because it is 'a good thing' or because someone told them employment prospects are good, will be dissatisfied.

I agree @needmoresleep - it’s about finding the right course for the individual, for their interests, aspirations and personality.

Mine could have done a generic CS course pretty much anywhere. He did do FM and only three A levels but was doing a sports apprenticeship alongside. He chose his course on the module specs which he researched and narrowed down extensively, and how the uni felt on the open day, but then got an unconditional offer due to his CyberSecurity extracurriculars. He won a big national event at 18, which gave him a lot of opportunities including a weeklong SANS course in Amsterdam, and a work experience placement leading to the job he’s done all through uni and where he’ll join the team full time this summer.

He could have applied to more ‘prestigious’ unis, and I dare say without the unconditional would have met the grades for them (he’s a boy lol) but he chose the course for the content and accreditation rather than the name. He’s likely to come out with a high classification degree and is already part of the team he’ll be joining at a well known firm in London. Having Oxbridge on his cv would not have made a jot of difference, he probably would be fighting for a graduate recruitment scheme place if he had...

My DS is in second year at Bath doing Maths and Comp Sci combined and really loves it. He has recently been on the rounds looking for a placement year job at some really top companies where he got to the final 5 or 6 for most of them before landing a really super position. At almost every level where they were down to final 15-20 people, at least three were from Bath, which I think is quite a good percentage and says something about the teaching there.

When we were doing the rounds of the uni visits I really liked the look of the Bristol course - it was inspirational. It was DS's second choice in the end.

Now in lockdown he has a full schedule of tutorials and lectures (remote) whereas I know a lot of friend's kids have just been chucked work and have no contact. All in all he is very pleased he chose Bath.

Hostess what were the Cyber security extracurriculars?

Ds got through and went to the Cyber First elite summer camp thing in year 10. Would that help with applications? Any thing else he could do?

I spoke to my DS about this. (He's at Imperial though not doing Computer Science). He said to definitely take FM as it would be useful - or at least start the course - your DS could drop it if necessary (many do). Another interesting thing was that he said Imperial's Computer Science exams are 'open book'. In Oxford and Cambridge they are not - all coding language has to be learnt and written down in the exam. He said Imperial do this as this is what it is like in the 'real world'. It's something useful to ask when you do go round the universities as to how they test their students.

That said, Imperial is very hard work generally and they demand a lot and this really impacts on social life. Your DS will get a better university experience at a good but less prestigious uni - but it does depend on his personality and whether he wants this or not.

I would agree with Needmoresleep, there is no snobbishness about encouraging FM for some one who is heading to certain maths heavy degrees, if it can be a ‘try it’ 4th A level, especially as GCSE maths may turn off students who actually will very much enjoy harder maths.

I think the point made by ItsReallyOnMe is also very good, ask the students on the course on their judgement of exams and feedback. Student ratings are usually worse if students have to cover a lot of poorly communicated difficult material without the support system of Oxbridge type tutorials, compounded by assessments that are perceived to be random.

While the Complete University Guide subject tables are useful, please don't just look at the overall score! Also look carefully at what information constitutes the tables.

For example, the Entry Standards score is the average UCAS tariff score of new undergraduate students NOT the grades equivalent of the standard offer for the course. This includes the UCAS points derived from drama/music and dance exams for example.

Some of the universities with the highest proportion of independent school students (Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Imperial, St.Andrews, Bristol, Edinburgh, UCL, LSE, Exeter, Bath etc) always typically occupy some of the top slots, but their ranking may well be bolstered by privately educated students who arrive with their Grade 8 music, Lamda, ballet, drama and horse-riding qualifications!

Click on the columns for Research Quality and Graduate Prospects to get a much more reliable reflection of the quality of a course (and a slightly different mix of 'best' universities).

For example, York has an excellent reputation for Computer Science. It's one of the uni's biggest departments, has had masses of investment and is top ten for its research quality and also graduate placement, as all its courses offer a year in industry option.

Universities such as Durham, Exeter, Bristol etc sometimes fall much lower down the list on research.

their ranking may well be bolstered by privately educated students who arrive with their Grade 8 music, Lamda, ballet, drama and horse-riding qualifications!

No Pebbles, this is MN myth No 37. Many STEM orientated students at selective and academic private and state schools take 4 A levels especially if one is FM. Not many, in our experience at least, take ballet. And the one who did, did so at a seriously high level whilst maintaining a strong academic performance - deserving of a few UCAS points.

And again...FIT. Yes research quality is important if you want to be a researcher. However my (lovely) tenant does not want to. Instead he is at the sort of University that probably does next to no research, but they do get him to take professional qualifications alongside his degree. So he will finish with a degree, plus the sort of professional qualifications expected when applying for jobs in computer departments in local finance and other firms.

Hostess' post is a good one.

As is the one from Itsreally. London, in particular, can be quite Marmite. It absolutely suited DS (at LSE reading economics) as he was happy doing regular 8 hour shifts in the library six days a week, and having friends who shared his passion for his subject. But plenty of people did not enjoy it.

Prospective students need to think about what they want. The best course is the right course. ,

@Untangl3d he started off as a bit of a bedroom hacker then started doing CTF challenges online. These are often team events but he was working on his own, so rather than specialising in one area he had to develop the skills to do ‘all of the bits’ (haha can you tell I’m not a techy 😂). He then found cyberchallenge uk which are an organisation whose aim is to find and develop talented youngsters with the aim of getting them into the industry (probably trying to divert them from becoming hackers!). They are backed by some big name sponsors including government departments, defence company’s, financial companies, communications companies, universities etc. They have restructured over the last year or so to focus more on schools programmes.

They used to run online challenges and invite the top scorers to ‘face to face’ events about 4x yearly, the highest scorers from these being invited to their flagship masterclass in the autumn which was about a 3 day challenge with a big awards dinner at the end. These were awesome - the first one my DS did, they started off at the premises of a defence company in Hampshire, working in teams against a fictitious cyber threat. Part way through, the threat level escalated, alarms sounded and they were given an hour to pack up their hotel rooms and get on a coach to central London where it continued - the threat had changed and there were decontamination robots and guys in hazmat suits wandering round in between the contestants and the assessors. Great fun! And part of it for my DS was the social side, being with people on the same wavelength rather than the blank looks he got at home when he talked about what he was doing - and of course the contacts he made at the dinners etc as the sponsors were seated with the contestants and lots of business cards exchanged. On DS’s second year he did really well and won about £15k of professional courses, as well as offers of work experience placements etc. He’s also gone on to be part of the uk team for the european cyber security challenge on the back of this - this is another thing worth looking into although I’m not sure what’s happening re this years event. It’s worth saying that the expenses for all of this are picked up by the sponsors, so far he’s had trips to Malaga, London and Bucharest for this and had amazing experiences.

Pic is from one of the masterclasses, from cyber challenge uk twitter feed.

Sorry to go off the point OP, but a really good organisation for people to get involved with if they’re interested in cybersecurity. DS was offered a GCHQ scholarship but took the offer of a job instead. He’s worked flexible hours from his uni room through his course and then summer breaks in London - being well paid for doing something he loves. I’ve got no doubts I’d be really stressed about exactly what he’s getting up to online by now if he hadn’t found this organisation, instead he’s had opportunities that he didn’t know existed.

Also - he’d already identified and applied to his top choice uni course, coincidentally they were a sponsor of the masterclass that he did very well in. His offer was made unconditional after that. A boost for him but I do think he slacked off his A levels a bit as a result

University of Birmingham has very strong connections with the industry, their employment rate is high after uni. I strong recommend it.

The three he chose are fine. If he could do physics or mechanics, its a much better combination, but after all its what he likes.

I wouldnt go for further maths or applied maths or anything on maths beside the maths hes already doing. It is just limiting his scope. Employers like a well rounded person. Imperial is looking for very strong maths to guarantee high grade by the end of the degree to keep their ranking up, which isnt needed to be computer scientist. You just need to be good in maths!

@Needmoresleep - no, I'm sorry, it's not a myth!
I don't deny that many STEM students at academic schools take 4 (or even 5) A levels and Further Maths is often one (which my own DS took) but it doesn't account for the whole of the entry tariff figures.

Plenty of Computer Science students get into Durham/Warwick/Bristol/Bath/UCL etc with just 3 A levels and the standard A*AA offer which only equates to 152 UCAS points.

DS and his friends (at 3 of the above unis) were all contacted in the first week of uni and asked to confirm all their qualifications which attracted UCAS points. DS said they were reeling off all the possible subjects to check he hadn't forgotten anything! His own extracurricular subjects added an extra 66 points to his UCAS tariff score on entry.

The Complete University Guide explains this here: www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/ask/answer/73/how-do-you-get-a-high-ucas-score-

Hi

Just jumping in to say that Scottish candidates have lots of UCAS points as they take both Highers and Advanced Highers in consecutive years in several different subjects.

My son acquired 318 UCAS points by doing the two sets of exams in two years (I have not counted duplicated subjects twice and if I did it would add on another 66 points!). All Scottish Unis have higher UCAS point scores because of this two tier exam system.

An A grade at Higher is worth 33 UCAS points whereas an A grade at Advanced Higher is worth 56 UCAS points.

Pebbles I still disagree and dont think your argument is logical.

Yes many high flying academic kids (private or state) manage some pretty impressive extra curricula activities alongside top grades. And will put everything applicable down on their UCAS. But I do not believe for a minute that Cambridge look further than academic potential, and suitability for the course. They are not interested in ballet.

We knew students who crept into Cambridge via the pool for a STEM degree despite 5 A levels at top grades,but perhaps not quite the UMS as others who did not go through the pool. One or two had stunning extra curricula: international sport, choral scholars, strong musicians etc. Top US University, would have snapped them up, but competitive UK universities rarely look at extra curricula unless directly relevent.

People getting into Durham with three A levels is no proof of anything.. There is contextualisation. Cambridge regularly give offers on three A levels. They also give 4x A* offers to pupils from very academic schools. My guess is that if those educationally advantaged pupils were not offering 4 A levels they probably would not get an offer.

It's simple really. Just try to make your application the best it can be. Keep up extra curricular if you enjoy it and it helps support a healthy work life balance. Education and experience of all kinds eventually prove useful, often when least expected.

And similarly look at courses carefully and decide which reflect your aspirations most closely.

Needmoresleep - I don't think we're talking about the same point?

I'm not for a minute suggesting that the universities at the top of the table don't have students with lots of A*/A grades and nor am I arguing that a Grade 8 music exam gets someone onto a STEM course in lieu of excellent Maths grades.

I'm simply pointing out that the UCAS Entry Tariff score is an unreliable 'column' on which to base any decision-making about university choice, and it doesn't fairly reflect the A level grades attained by students starting the course. It's disproportionately boosted by extra non-A level tariff points in universities which have a high level of private school candidates.

If you look at the universities with the highest % of students who went to private school and the universities ranked at the top of the entry standards list there is a strong correlation:

Percentage of students who went to private school:
Oxford: 41.8%
St. Andrews 39.6%
Durham 38.7%
Imperial 38.4%
Cambridge 36.6%
Bristol 34.1%
Exeter 34.1%
Edinburgh 33.8%
LSE 31.3%
Source: HESA stats on state school students, all undergrads 2017/18 academic year

If a sizeable proportion of those students are adding on a 4th A level (which may not be available in state sixth form colleges) and 50+ extra UCAS points from Music/ Drama/ Dance qualifications (which are very much encouraged and supported in the independent sector) then of course that is going to have an effect on the average score per student across the board?

I guess I've just seen too many of DS's friends and their parents use Entry Standards ranking as a lazy indicator of the quality of a university, and I'm urging people to be careful with that in looking at league tables.

If you look at grad job stats, Liverpool Hope comes second. The top 20 universities all have really good employment rates. This isn’t a big issue anywhere in the higher ranked universities and for plenty of others. So look at type of university, course, modules and entry requirements. Privately educated or not doesn’t really matter. Entry requirements do. 4 A levels is neither here nor there. 3 is what they ask for - even at Imperial! FM is preferred there, so one would expect applicants to have 4 A levels, but at other universities it won’t matter but could be described as “useful” to hit the ground running but definitely not essential.

Who just looks at ucas points upon entry? The league tables enable people to shortlist. They then look at the entry requirements for each course. MEng is often higher than BEng etc. Shortlisting by not looking at the individual university web sites is just very short sighted.