Best computer science course in Leinster?

romakarol

Colleges that spring to mind for computer science are trinity, UCC, and maynooth. Anyone have any idea which college holds the bes CS course? In maynooth its called cs and software engineering but I presume its roughly the same.

Tom Dunne

Define best.

rm212

Computational Thinking is one of the best regarded CS courses in Ireland currently, and is gaining a lot of momentum and interest among the big businesses. Although it is a very new course, those due to graduate at the end of the current year are already being offered employment with starting salaries of around €55,000. You will need an aptitude for mathematics (pure) also, as this is an integral part of the course to allow you to strengthen your opportunities. There are currently only 12 spots per year, as the course co-ordinator (Phil Maguire, extremely nice guy, very dedicated to the course) feels it is important to give everyone individual attention in the custom tailored computational thinking modules. Also, just to note, it is an accelerated three year BSc course.

If you need any more details, please PM me or email pmaguire@cs.nuim.ie.

romakarol

Define best?
-teaches most relevant things: ie less essays/theory more raw programming.
-college has the best facilities+social scene+clubs (programming clubs duh).
-repute of the course/college nationally and internationally.


What do people think of computational thinking vs computer science? Above all I want to learn programming to an extent I can create a full-blown game/ work as a white-collar hacker (two very different goals, but I don't know what I want exactly yet- hopefully I'll manage to learn both). At the moment I'm in 6th year and learning html in my own time (just started 3 days ago-learning about using css commands for spacing/moving text) on codeacademy, and reading a book on website design dealing mainly with the same topics.

I am a decent maths student. HL b3 on average.

romakarol

Here is the Ct course rundown:
Hide-Sample Course plan

First year - Semester 1
–– Algorithms & Data Structures
–– Introduction to Computational Thinking
–– Finite Mathematics
–– Foundations of Euclidean Geometry
–– Introduction to Philosophy

Semester 2
–– Operating Systems
–– Algorithms & Data Structures 2
–– Integration
–– Multivariable Calculus
–– Linear Algebra
–– Logical Reasoning and Critical Thinking

Second year - Semester 1
–– Programming Languages & Compilers
–– Theory of Computation
–– Software Verification
–– Real Analysis
–– Theories of Knowledge (Epistemology)
–– Philosophy of Natural Sciences

Semester 2
–– History of Computation
–– Computation & Complexity
–– Artificial Intelligence & Language Processing
–– Numerical Computation
–– Group Theory
–– Complex Analysis

Third year - Semester 1
–– Programming Language Design & Semantics
–– Differential Geometry
–– Signal, Image and Optical Processing
–– Machine Learning & Neural Networks
–– Cryptography

Semester 2
–– Readings in the Foundations of Computer Science
–– Point Set Topology
–– Robotics & Automation
–– History of Mathematics
–– Statistical Inference

Wow seems like a mouthful! Looks quite complex, and a lot seems to be moreso programming thinking rather than, you know-actual programming. Not sure if this is appropriate for anyone but the best maths students.

Also can't find any course rundown for Cs. Can anyone help here?

rm212

We do a large amount of tricky Java programming in Data Structures and Algorithms. So, in first year, we share both Data Structures and Algorithms modules with the 2nd year Computer Science and Software Engineering students. You get into the more complicated stuff straight away. We also learn Haskell in first year, which is a functional programming language. The maths is very, very difficult though. The majority of the students with me in 1st year struggle a lot with the maths; keeping in mind some of these students got As in HL LC maths. Thankfully, I seem to have a knack for pure maths and programming, so, I'm picking it up very quickly. With only 12 of us in the course, we are very, very closely bonded and best friends. If you want to be REALLY close as a course, CT is the way to go. So, I help the other guys a lot with the maths and programming.

You might expect that the people in the course would be arrogant, different or weird, with such high points requirements (no offence to other high point achievers); I certainly did. However, it isn't like this at all. We are a group of really friendly, sociable and interesting people and we all get on really well with each other. The craic is on another level!

romakarol

rm212 wrote: »

We do a large amount of tricky Java programming in Data Structures and Algorithms. So, in first year, we share both Data Structures and Algorithms modules with the 2nd year Computer Science and Software Engineering students. You get into the more complicated stuff straight away. We also learn Haskell in first year, which is a functional programming language. The maths is very, very difficult though. The majority of the students with me in 1st year struggle a lot with the maths; keeping in mind some of these students got As in HL LC maths. Thankfully, I seem to have a knack for pure maths and programming, so, I'm picking it up very quickly. With only 12 of us in the course, we are very, very closely bonded and best friends. If you want to be REALLY close as a course, CT is the way to go. So, I help the other guys a lot with the maths and programming.

You might expect that the people in the course would be arrogant, different or weird, with such high points requirements (no offence to other high point achievers); I certainly did. However, it isn't like this at all. We are a group of really friendly, sociable and interesting people and we all get on really well with each other. The craic is on another level!

Thanks a lot for the rundown! I'm afraid of putting this course on my cao as I'll likely get the points, but without much thanks to my maths skills! Maybe cs is more appropriate for me, at least I won't risk getting left behind early on.

I'll consider both, thanks for your help.