Software Development

FloatOn23

Apologies if this could be in an already established thread, feel free to let me know. Was just wondering if anyone could help me out, hoping to start this course in September. Basically, Im broke and my laptop/desktop have seen better days. Would really like to avoid having to upgrade as long as I can untill i get some money together. Is anything intensive within the first year, specifically, anything that would require more than a knackered pc with an i3 processor and 4Gb of Ram? Would really appreciate if anyone could help me out.

gleNine

I wouldn't anticipate anything being that intensive so I wouldn't be too concerned!

FloatOn23

FloatOn23 wrote: »

Apologies if this could be in an already established thread, feel free to let me know. Was just wondering if anyone could help me out, hoping to start this course in September. Basically, Im broke and my laptop/desktop have seen better days. Would really like to avoid having to upgrade as long as I can untill i get some money together. Is anything intensive within the first year, specifically, anything that would require more than a knackered pc with an i3 processor and 4Gb of Ram? Would really appreciate if anyone could help me out.

From looking through your modules you will be grand with your current laptop for sure. You will do basic programming which is not that intensive at all, you will use eclipse or blue j for the first year and they can be run easily on your machine.

FloatOn23

Ah cheers for that folks, thought it should be ok but said I'd just make sure like.

yergrand

just finished first year myself this year, your old laptop will do fine

from what i've heard about second year, with the web dev project, you'll probably want to upgrade alright but there is nothing in first year that'll be remotely taxing for your machine.

2006K

Hi,any idea you could tell us what the timetable for 1st year is? I presume its very intensive? Thanks

yergrand

24-25 hours I think. there was one day where it was more or less go from 9am with an hour for lunch in the middle but all the other days had 2-3 hour breaks between lectures/labs. There was an awful lot of dead time in the year. There will be several groups in first year and each one will have a slightly different timetable to the others to account for sharing lecturers and labs between all the students. no way to know what your timetable will really be like until you're given it on your orientation week.

2006K

Great thanks. Are they mostly 9am starts or later,obviously depending on the group you're in? What do you do during the long breaks,library? Also how did you find the course,did you enjoy it,is it very hard? Thanks,appreciate the info

yergrand

the 9am thing is up to whoever's doing the timetables this year, no way to know how many there'll be. think my group had 3 last year. I spent most of the in-between class breaks in the canteen wishing there weren't so many in-between class breaks. There really isn't a huge workload in the first year.

the first year of the course is very basic, if you have any sort of familiarity with computers you won't find it troubling at all. If you turn up to class, do the work as its handed out (especially the Continous assesments, you can have the year more or less passed by february) you'll sail through it.
if you're very new to computers then i wouldn't say you'd find the content difficult but there is a lot to learn so you'll just have to do a little bit more work but don't worry about it too much they really try and throw marks at you. They do this thing for first years where they have extra tutorials and revision classes available for (almost?) all the subjects if people are struggling, they'll go over all this in your first week but several of the people in my group found that really useful.

the lecturers are all grand, if you're having any sort of issue talk to them after class or arrange to meet at their offices. Don't be afraid to talk with your group head about any issues either. Oh and with programming especially go to your tutorials, it will be a different lecturer than the main lad and he has a habit of approaching problems in a different way. When you're just starting out it's nice to be hit over the head a few times a week with the notion that there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Abbey127

Hi would anyone know what's the max salary you would get for a software developer after 20 years I would say you would be on around 80k ?

Thanks in advance