Best place to study Computer Science

Darkphenom

I am looking at studying Computer Science after the leaving cert. I will be doing higher level maths and physics. I was wondering if anyone could help me out as I have found a few colleges that offer C.S. It's hard to choose between them all.

These are the colleges that I am looking at NUI Maynooth, Trinity College, UCD, UL, UCC, NUI Galway . Does anyone know which place might have the best lecturers or facilities?

NSNO

I'm starting first year Computer Science in Trinity at the moment so I can't really help compare the degrees across the country though when I was researching where to go I repeatedly heard that Trinity and DCU had the best courses and to avoid UCD at all costs. Heard that from students of all three universities.

Computer Science in Trinity is an integrated masters programme (My year and the year ahead of me are the last years to be able to opt out of the fifth year) which may sway you towards there. At the end of your 5 years you'll graduate with an honors B.A (Moderatorship) in Computer Science and a Masters in Computer Science (M.C.S) with Chartered Engineer accreditation from Engineers Ireland which is something you won't get anywhere else in the country at the moment (I'm 99% sure of that anyway). It has a really cool 8 month industrial/research internship placement in 4th year as well as a research dissertation in 5th year that is definitely making the programme much stronger than it looked when I decided to do it.

However, you'll obviously have to keep up your Honours Maths to get the C3 requirement. Also, the points for Trinity CS are likely to jump 25-30 points with the new Maths bonus points as well as general increase in demand so 410'ish & a C3 in Honours Maths could be the requirements for next year.

Obviously Trinity itself is a big sell as its social life is pretty legendary (As are those in DCU and UCD though!) and the location is absolutely brilliant. Trinity has the added bonus of having 2 really active computing-centric societies in DUCSS and Netsoc who seem to be a great bunch of lads and lasses. The gym/pool facilities in Trinity are pretty amazing too and by far the best value (77 euro for the year for the gym/pool which you pay with your reg. fee!)

Apologies but my opinion is really Dublin-centric as I was never considering leaving Dublin for university.

If you have any more questions, ask away

Neodymium

NSNO wrote: »

I'm starting first year Computer Science in Trinity at the moment so I can't really help compare the degrees across the country though when I was researching where to go I repeatedly heard that Trinity and DCU had the best courses and to avoid UCD at all costs. Heard that from students of all three universities.

Computer Science in Trinity is an integrated masters programme (My year and the year ahead of me are the last years to be able to opt out of the fifth year) which may sway you towards there. At the end of your 5 years you'll graduate with an honors B.A (Moderatorship) in Computer Science and a Masters in Computer Science (M.C.S) with Chartered Engineer accreditation from Engineers Ireland which is something you won't get anywhere else in the country at the moment (I'm 99% sure of that anyway). It has a really cool 8 month industrial/research internship placement in 4th year as well as a research dissertation in 5th year that is definitely making the programme much stronger than it looked when I decided to do it.

However, you'll obviously have to keep up your Honours Maths to get the C3 requirement. Also, the points for Trinity CS are likely to jump 25-30 points with the new Maths bonus points as well as general increase in demand so 410'ish & a C3 in Honours Maths could be the requirements for next year.

Obviously Trinity itself is a big sell as its social life is pretty legendary (As are those in DCU and UCD though!) and the location is absolutely brilliant. Trinity has the added bonus of having 2 really active computing-centric societies in DUCSS and Netsoc who seem to be a great bunch of lads and lasses. The gym/pool facilities in Trinity are pretty amazing too and by far the best value (77 euro for the year for the gym/pool which you pay with your reg. fee!)

Apologies but my opinion is really Dublin-centric as I was never considering leaving Dublin for university.

If you have any more questions, ask away

Hi, I have two questions.
1) what programming languages do you cover in first year in trinity?
2) why do you say to avoid ucd at all costs? ucd was ranked 1st for computer science in Ireland this year.

Thanks

Royale with Cheese

I can only speak from experience as a programmer... but if you intend to go into software development once you graduate then it's not going to matter where you do your degree. All your degree is going to get you is an interview, in industry you won't use the vast majority of the stuff they teach you.

Just make sure to go with one of the bigger universities and not an IT, not because you get an inferior education from an IT but because it might look better to someone in HR sifting through graduate CV's.

NSNO

Neodymium wrote: »

Hi, I have two questions.
1) what programming languages do you cover in first year in trinity?
2) why do you say to avoid ucd at all costs? ucd was ranked 1st for computer science in Ireland this year.

Thanks

1) Java and ARM Assembly in first year.
2) Just what I was told by students there and in other universities. Apparently the department/college aren't particularly supportive of CS-related activities/societies nor is their much interest IIRC. This is just what I've heard second-hand, mind.

bigred100

NSNO wrote: »

1) Java and ARM Assembly in first year.
2) Just what I was told by students there and in other universities. Apparently the department/college aren't particularly supportive of CS-related activities/societies nor is their much interest IIRC. This is just what I've heard second-hand, mind.

In relation to point 2, the entire course has been re done top to bottom so the old students, and tbh anyone over 2nd year won't know much of the new layout.

CS is fairly apart from other courses in the sciences, mostly down to the fact we have a separate building and very little reason to leave besides getting food. From what I've experienced all the staff are more than helpful for anyone who actually goes looking for help. There's netsoc too which is a computer society. The lack of interest in CS socs probably stems from the fact that it's a small enough number in CS so you kind of know a lot of people anyway.