Applied Computing at WIT

kev_like

Hey, just wondering if anyone is/has doing/done it. Basically i'm hoping to transfer from Computer Science in cork to this course and I just want to see if it's worth my while.

Sully

What would you like to know? Myself and a few others have done this course. Its a good course, tough but good. Not so sure it would beat University courses, from what I hear about their content, but its one of the best around and the best in WIT IMO. Lecturers and course leaders are fairly decent also.

kev_like

Sully wrote: »

What would you like to know? Myself and a few others have done this course. Its a good course, tough but good. Not so sure it would beat University courses, from what I hear about their content, but its one of the best around and the best in WIT IMO. Lecturers and course leaders are fairly decent also.

Basically i'm aiming to go into games development and computer science isn't exactly tuned for that. So i'm wondering would it be worth my while changing to that course with an aim like games development? It says on the site it's one of the ending qualifications you'd be able to proceed to get a job in but still, would like to get some first hand information.

2Bv¬2B

kev_like wrote: »

Basically i'm aiming to go into games development and computer science isn't exactly tuned for that. So i'm wondering would it be worth my while changing to that course with an aim like games development? It says on the site it's one of the ending qualifications you'd be able to proceed to get a job in but still, would like to get some first hand information.

If it's games you are looking for, I wouldn't recommended Applied Computing (3rd year myself) Carlow has a great games course as far as i'm aware. WIT's isn't really up to scratch, and if you intend to do games here, you will be looking for Entertainment Systems.

Games is apparently available with Applied Computing however by the time you reach 3rd year in Applied Computing numbers will drop. That is what happened to us and as a result they could not run the games stream because there wasn't enough of us.

kev_like

2Bv¬2B wrote: »

If it's games you are looking for, I wouldn't recommended Applied Computing (3rd year myself) Carlow has a great games course as far as i'm aware. WIT's isn't really up to scratch, and if you intend to do games here, you will be looking for Entertainment Systems.

Games is apparently available with Applied Computing however by the time you reach 3rd year in Applied Computing numbers will drop. That is what happened to us and as a result they could not run the games stream because there wasn't enough of us.

So is there anything tuned towards games in waterford no? Just don't wana go too far tbh, originally from Cork and don't wana spend forever on busses/trains just to head back from time to time

2Bv¬2B

kev_like wrote: »

So is there anything tuned towards games in waterford no? Just don't wana go too far tbh, originally from Cork and don't wana spend forever on busses/trains just to head back from time to time

I think if you are serious about games, Waterford isn't the place.

stick-dan

Sully wrote: »

What would you like to know? Myself and a few others have done this course. Its a good course, tough but good. Not so sure it would beat University courses, from what I hear about their content, but its one of the best around and the best in WIT IMO. Lecturers and course leaders are fairly decent also.

why would a university be better than an IT for a course like this, This course in WIT is well respected against other institutes and Universities.WIT provides hands on technical and practical experience and the work placement module is brilliant experience.I do agree WIT falls down in other courses in comparison to uni's but not this one. Would recommend the course, Applied computing, but heed the warnings It is tough.

2Bv¬2B

stick-dan wrote: »

Would recommend the course, Applied computing, but heed the warnings It is tough.

I believe OP is concerned about games development, I wouldn't suggest Applied Computing if it's games he is after.

Sully

stick-dan wrote: »

why would a university be better than an IT for a course like this, This course in WIT is well respected against other institutes and Universities.WIT provides hands on technical and practical experience and the work placement module is brilliant experience.I do agree WIT falls down in other courses in comparison to uni's but not this one. Would recommend the course, Applied computing, but heed the warnings It is tough.

From what I gathered during my time in the course, is that other universities were offering similar but stronger courses covering more. Nothing about respect. Work Experience isn't easy to get in the current times, and then depends what type of job you can get out of it.

No disrespect to the course which is still very good, well respected, and one of the best out there.

stick-dan

2Bv¬2B wrote: »

I believe OP is concerned about games development, I wouldn't suggest Applied Computing if it's games he is after.

change the thread title, jeeze it runs my pastime of posting without reading past the last two posts if the thread title is off :P

mecco

Sully wrote: »

From what I gathered during my time in the course, is that other universities were offering similar but stronger courses covering more. Nothing about respect. Work Experience isn't easy to get in the current times, and then depends what type of job you can get out of it.

No disrespect to the course which is still very good, well respected, and one of the best out there.

Calling it one of the best out there in the same post as calling the others stronger hardly makes sense. I'd be interested to know what you feel these "stronger" courses cover that the Applied Computing doesn't? I myself did the Applied Computing course, and found it covered all the stuff you'd expect from a straight Computer Science/Applied Computing course. I think this is evidenced by the fact they are both Level 8, and both required identical CAO points.

Generally, work experience will be equally difficult no matter which course you come from and obviously you can get more types of jobs with an Applied Computing/Computer Science degree than you can with a more specific Games focused degree.

OP, if you are determined to go into games, a specific course covering all the programming, physics and maths needed in games development will obviously have its advantages. I wouldn't attempt to advise you on that as I have an abhorrence for games development personally so know nothing about the various courses

What I will say about the Applied Computing course:
its a fair amount of work, kept my quite busy,
found it extremely interesting, giving a solid grounding in networking, databases, OS's, programming, and all the other usual suspects,
staff were quite helpful and approachable throughout.

hope that helps,
mecco.

kev_like

mecco wrote: »

Calling it one of the best out there in the same post as calling the others stronger hardly makes sense. I'd be interested to know what you feel these "stronger" courses cover that the Applied Computing doesn't? I myself did the Applied Computing course, and found it covered all the stuff you'd expect from a straight Computer Science/Applied Computing course. I think this is evidenced by the fact they are both Level 8, and both required identical CAO points.

Generally, work experience will be equally difficult no matter which course you come from and obviously you can get more types of jobs with an Applied Computing/Computer Science degree than you can with a more specific Games focused degree.

OP, if you are determined to go into games, a specific course covering all the programming, physics and maths needed in games development will obviously have its advantages. I wouldn't attempt to advise you on that as I have an abhorrence for games development personally so know nothing about the various courses

What I will say about the Applied Computing course:
its a fair amount of work, kept my quite busy,
found it extremely interesting, giving a solid grounding in networking, databases, OS's, programming, and all the other usual suspects,
staff were quite helpful and approachable throughout.

hope that helps,
mecco.

Well basically i've been looking at the actually 'Games' tuned courses and they're all basically level 7, See, i'm doing computer science atm and was wondering would Applied Computer be a little bit more tuned towards games or should I just stick with comp science?

neilk32

kev_like wrote: »

Well basically i've been looking at the actually 'Games' tuned courses and they're all basically level 7, See, i'm doing computer science atm and was wondering would Applied Computer be a little bit more tuned towards games or should I just stick with comp science?

Entertainment Systems check it out.

2Bv¬2B

neilk32 wrote: »

Entertainment Systems check it out.

No don't check it out, it's the most unorganised course..........

kev_like

2Bv¬2B wrote: »

No don't check it out, it's the most unorganised course..........

Checked it out and it's what i'm now going for tbh, it may be unorganised due to it being new, but i'm just goin' to hope it'll be better organised by next year.

2Bv¬2B

kev_like wrote: »

Checked it out and it's what i'm now going for tbh, it may be unorganised due to it being new, but i'm just goin' to hope it'll be better organised by next year.

I hope so too man, although I would seriously recommend Carlow if you are very interested in it

kev_like

2Bv¬2B wrote: »

I hope so too man, although I would seriously recommend Carlow if you are very interested in it

Tbh don't wana move as far as carlow, as i said in the OP i wanted to stay in cork/waterford. So looks like entertainment systems for me.

Sully

mecco wrote: »

Calling it one of the best out there in the same post as calling the others stronger hardly makes sense. I'd be interested to know what you feel these "stronger" courses cover that the Applied Computing doesn't? I myself did the Applied Computing course, and found it covered all the stuff you'd expect from a straight Computer Science/Applied Computing course. I think this is evidenced by the fact they are both Level 8, and both required identical CAO points.

Jesus its been years since I even looked at it so I cant draw comparesments myself, but thats the impression I got from speaking with other students in IT courses. Its one of the best IT courses out there, ie in the top 10, but other courses are stronger and therefore come up higher in that top 10 - that makes perfect sense.

Generally, work experience will be equally difficult no matter which course you come from and obviously you can get more types of jobs with an Applied Computing/Computer Science degree than you can with a more specific Games focused degree.

More difficult now, to be fair, in the current climate. Regardless of course.

BeatFreak

I'm in second year Applied Computing and can confirm that while the course is tough it is very broad and I feel that everything (well nearly everything) we've covered is relevant and useful in the industry.

There's also slightly more hands on work than a normal CS course, from what I understand anyway.

There is the occasional uninspiring lecturer but on the whole I've found them to be very helpful and always willing to assist.

On the games development front, I can confirm that one of our three electives for next semester is games development and I'm fairly sure that you can do more games dev in 3rd year too.

Hope this helps.

red_diesel

I did the CSD (Commercial Software Development) course in WIT about 10 years ago. Piss poor course. I saw people come out of the course with 2.1 degrees that could not write a line of code! We were doing modules like cognitive science that ,whilst interesting, had little to do with computing.

Lacoona

I'm in second year Applied computing at the moment too. It's an excellent course, all the lecturers are very approachable and will always put the time in to help you or the class out.
I have friends doing computer courses in trinity, UCD and DCU and it seems like our course is far more intense. I did a lot of research into the courses before I joined the WIT, and I found that the course is very well respected and one of the oldest/best courses in Ireland.(oldest in the WIT).
This course is perfect if you want to focus on networking, or general programming.
For games, I'd recommend you do entertainment systems.
We share programming, networks maths and operating systems classes with them but they have other modules such as 2d games, 3d games, animation etc etc that we wouldn't do in applied computing.
Entertainment systems was a mess starting up, as is expected from a brand new course! However, in the last two years that I have been there, they certainly have tightened the majority of loose screws- the course content and results are very much reflective of that.

Bare in mind, both Entertainment systems and Applied computing can be very difficult and if you decide to do one, prepare for a lot of work.

Saying that, I find the work very interesting and enjoyable so the hours I put in are simply time well spent (even the maths :P) however I do feel that programming moves very slow.... (something not many people will agree with tho)

sashafierce

This post has been deleted.

stick-dan

sashafierce wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

obvious troll is obvious


Idid the course, it's hard but good, recommend it.