Urgent science question

iFreeley

Im planning on doing CS & IT in Nuig in September, but im curious that if i dont get my points, can i do undenominated science and pick a subject group with computer science, and continue the 4 years with everything computer science based, will it get me the same degree that doing the straight computer science would? Please reply!!!

Ficheall

You'd have a general science degree as opposed to a CS&IT degree, no? Though if you perform well in your first year exams, they may well let you transfer into the second year of the denominated degree programme. No guarantee, mind..

matthew2008

i emailed the college a similar question and they told me that 'The programme is not linked to the General BSc in the College of Science.' with the programme being computer science

matthew2008

however i dont know what the difference would be in choosing the computer science options within the general science degree

Ficheall

Well, the modules wouldn't all be the same, would they?

yer man!

You can specialise in computer science through the undenominated program, you would then gain a BSc in Computer Science. I did undenominated and now have a BSc in Chemistry. The modules wouldn't exactly be the same but the main one would. You do also have more flexibility as you would be doing a few other subjects too to see where your interests lie. If you know you only want to do computer science then go along the denominated route but if you haven't made up your mind 100% then take the undenominated. It would lead to the same qualification more or less.

http://www.nuigalway.ie/courses/undergraduate-courses/science-undenominated.html

Just a link to the course

work2013

iFreeley, you should definitely consider Computer science through the Undenominated science route as an option. I chose to take computer science through the Undenom Science route when I didn't get enough points for CS&IT in 2011. Next year I'm going into 3rd year Undenom Science and I will be able to do Computer science aswell as 3 other half subjects (possibly related to computer science). You can also take languages as half subjects aswell.

To sum up the four years:

In first year you'll take 4 subjects (one will be computer science)

In second year you can take 3 full subjects OR 2 full and 2 half ( I chose Chemistry and Computer science as my 2 full subjects ) and (French and Computers with chemistry) as my 2 half subjects.

In third year my plan is to take Computer science as my full subject and 3 other half subjects ( I still have to confirm that I can take these choices as the system is being changed atm with regards to what choices you can make etc.)

In 4th year you take just computer science and then you get your BSc Computer science which is a world wide recognised degree and a great degree to have if you want to expand on further with a post graduate course.

Since I chose this route through Computer science I have been curious as to the difference between this route and CS&IT.
I have since, over the last 2 years, spoken to lecturers on both sides to gain more information about the differences between both.

Many believe that the Computer Science through the Undenom Science route will give you a more programming focused degree as it doesn't go as in depth into topics related to IT / next gen technologies etc. as CS&IT does.

Of course if you are interested you could go for a post grad degree in games programming/media/software development etc. after getting your BSc in Computer Science and these choices would all complement your degree excellently.

I've enjoyed the first 2 years of my degree and although I might have preferred the option to spend more time studying computer science, I don't regret taking this route and I would recommend it to anyone else. Its also been a great learning experience to study the other subjects over the last 2 years and I feel that it offers plenty of options.

We have done lots of interesting things over the past 2 years in computer science including making a minesweeper game/a phone book type program/ a program that calculates the distance from any location on earth to another location using a database of information and many other algorithm based programming labs which are a nice challenge and rewarding to complete. Our class studied the Python programming language which I found is a great language to start on and it enables you to easily learn other languages afterwards. I started to learn some Java last year through youtube videos and found that I could make a game easily after just a day or two of the videos and I attribute this to the fact that I studied Python.

You could also easily learn other languages in your first 2 years studying computer science through Undenominated science just on youtube videos if you feel you'd like to do more or you have spare time and want to do it for the fun of it. All these languages will be beneficial to you when you graduate and will put you a step ahead of the rest !

Just have a look at the programming language lessons on youtube. There are channels with 1000s of videos on every type of language and they start you off assuming you have no knowledge of the language or even of programming.

So definitely consider Computer science through Undenominated Science as an option and don't worry, you wont be missing out on anything by not choosing CS&IT ... Both have their own perks.

And I believe that anything you might not do in Computer science through Undenom science thats in CS&IT, you can always do afterwards in a post graduate degree or whatever.
As mentioned you can always take up learning other programming languages for fun in your own time or you can do a post graduate degree afterwards to cover anything at all.