Third Level Institutions

Paul_D

Hello. I’m in sixth year of secondary school and I’m gone to write my Leaving Cert in June 2006. The problem is that I don’t know where to go to get the third level qualification. I definitely want to do SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT or something very similar. But all the universities/IT’s offers courses which looks the same to me.

Does anybody know which of universities or institutes have the best courses in Software Development? I’m hoping to get very good results in my Leaving Cert especially in math/app. math, so I definitely will be able to pass any entry requirements.

P.S. BTW, I already develop my own small programs on C++ either using MFC or just API. I also learned a bit of Assembly language and wrote some small progs on that. About two years ago I started develop my own OS in protected mode using assembler, but because it was so difficult I left out it.

madramor

To get the best academic qualifications,
You want a good all round computer degree and
then look at a masters in software development.

Despite dropping its standards in the past 5 years I still think
DCU's Computer Applications degree is the best.

If you don't want to go to Dublin stay with a university rather than an IT.

Trinity and UCD degrees carry the most weight abroad especially in UK

I personally think masters degrees are a waste of time, most are not
that great and its just another year in college rather than out in the
work force where you really start learning.

DCU used to do a part time MSc that was good I think its fulltime now,
I personally think that DCUs MSc in ecom is a lot of crap based on
working with people who did it ie(they said they learned nothing new
from it).

Trinity do a good full time one i forget the name.

A lot of people are doing masters degrees because they cant get a
good software development job.

Paul_D

So, what I understand it will be better if I avoid Institutes of Technology.

So Computer Science degrees in DCU, TCD, UCD are the best in Ireland?

2 madramor: you were saying that you personally think that master degrees are waste of time, but then you said that a lot of people do them to get a decent job. I confused.

madramor

Paul_D wrote:

So, what I understand it will be better if I avoid Institutes of Technology.
So Computer Science degrees in DCU, TCD, UCD are the best in Ireland?

academically the universities are at a higher level than the ITs.

3rd level is all about what you put in and learn

you could be very good at studying and get a 1:1 in a university course
but not be a good developer
or
scrape a pass in an IT and be a great developer.

Yes, avoid ITs in favour of Universities because there courses tend
to be better (lecturers,course content,facilities,recognation)

Paul_D wrote:

2 madramor: you were saying that you personally think that master degrees are waste of time, but then you said that a lot of people do them to get a decent job. I confused.

there are very few development jobs around so people rather than doing
a admin,support,other IT job decide to do a master in the hope that it
will help them get a development job, i never said it works its just what
people are doing.

so no need to get confused
1:
my opinion, masters degrees are a waste of time
2:
other peoples opinion, a masters degree will get them a better job
3:
my opinion is in no way related to other peoples opinions

damnyanks

CIT, NUI Limerick and Galways have good IT courses. The UCD Comp sci is quite basic and isn't totally focused on computing. Rather you do some actual science subjects. Not too sure about Trinity but last I saw it had a very academic approach.

As far as beset facilities go a Uni won't have them. A more modern campus will. For instance I know NCI have very good computing labs however they are very restricted (Citrix based). Would you consider Scotland ? It's free to study there or you pay the same price as ireland can't remember. The courses in Edinburgh are really good!

Vokes

damnyanks wrote:

The UCD Comp sci is quite basic and isn't totally focused on computing.

I heard that this particular course focuses mainly on Java programming, and that there's not much done with C/C++ development. Is this true?


DITs computer science degree seems to be a good all round one, focusing on C/C++ initially followed by Java later on.

I would agree though with the above that DCU's Comp Apps is the best of the bunch.

homeOwner

Its been many years since I graduated from UCD with a comp sci degree so I dont know much about how it is run nowadays, but when I was in college the general thinking was the DCU degree was very good from a practical point of view, the people graduating could actually program and they went on work experience which is invaluable. It really helped getting the first job. The UCD course was at the time more theoretical and I have to admit I wasnt a good programmer when I came out of it although some in the class were. One of my lecturers stock phrase was "no self respecting computer scientist ever goes near a computer" and that sumed up the approach to comp sci in UCD.

But I have been employed in the IT industry for many years now and the UCD degree has really been a terriffic grounding. Although it is a cliche, UCD taught me how to learn and gave me the skills to pick things up myself.

If you are serious about persuing a career in IT, then stick to the universities. Its not the people who can program that earn the big bucks and climb the ladder. Its the people who see the big picture in an organisation, can grasp the essence of problems quickly and come up with a good solution. IMO that is what universities will teach you that you wont learn on a course, but it could take a few years to really appreciate it.

dent

Working as a programmer for a big oul multinational and there are programmers from various educational institutions here.

DCU and DIT are both held in high regard as they are known for there practical programming outlook.

Paul_D

First of all I want to thank everybody who replied to my post.
So to sum up all that, it seems that DCU would be the best choice. What about other facilities in DCU, like accommodation, lecture halls, computers etc?

2 damnyanks: Did you mean that Edinburgh University has better courses that irish ones or they are just good?


P.S. Would not the DCU course be very easy and I would have a feeling that I could have taught myself all that in one year instead of four? I used to learn a lot of things myself, I even study applied math for leaving cert without any help from the teachers.

Sarunas

Only been in accomodation in dcu few times, looks ok, but most people' places are messy...

lecture halls are good.

computers, not sure what they're going to do this year since they ripped out a lab of maybe 50 or so machines. The newer ones are decent spec(P4 2.8, 512mb ram, 2k pro), older ones iirc are P3 ~700, 256mb ram... all are dual booting 2k and suse 9.1 or 2. i think they do have ~500 machines for computing students.

Don't think it has been mentioned about dcu, but we had 50% failture/drop out rate this year, similar to last year.

About teaching your self, nope. You need a lot of practice in programming. First year is a breeze. I'll find out how the second year is very soon(starting on monday).

MrPinK

Paul_D wrote:

P.S. Would not the DCU course be very easy and I would have a feeling that I could have taught myself all that in one year instead of four? I used to learn a lot of things myself, I even study applied math for leaving cert without any help from the teachers.

The same could be said about nearly all courses. With a library card and an internet connection you can learn everything about anything. You won't have a degree to show how much you know at the end of it all though.

iggyman

im thinkin of going there as well next year...to do computer apps..ive been there about ten times in fifth year doin web design courses,shadowing days and other activities...its modern ...has every thing you need...the computers are excellant they have more computers than any other third level institute in ireland..and best of all its only up the road from were i live..i recommend going there..but as someone said there is a a 50% drop out rate i wouldnt say youll have trouble with that and i hope i dont either..

damnyanks

If you are interested in development or what ever it really doesn't matter where you go to study at the end of the day. You need to have an interest in what you are doing to see the big picture or be able to solve whatever problems exist.

The course at Edinburgh would be rated higher then all IT courses in the Republic of Ireland. The degree's up in Ulster are rated very well.

rsynnott

damnyanks wrote:

Not too sure about Trinity but last I saw it had a very academic approach.

And quite right too!

damnyanks wrote:

As far as beset facilities go a Uni won't have them. A more modern campus will. For instance I know NCI have very good computing labs however they are very restricted (Citrix based). Would you consider Scotland ? It's free to study there or you pay the same price as ireland can't remember. The courses in Edinburgh are really good!

We have quite good facilities for Computer Science students in Trinity. So do DCU.

SofaKing wrote:

I heard that this particular course focuses mainly on Java programming, and that there's not much done with C/C++ development. Is this true?

.

In general, if you're doing CS, the actual languages you use in college don't matter much. It's the concepts that matter.

Paul_D wrote:

P.S. Would not the DCU course be very easy and I would have a feeling that I could have taught myself all that in one year instead of four? I used to learn a lot of things myself, I even study applied math for leaving cert without any help from the teachers.

If you can already program, then the programming sections of any course are probably going to be old news to you, largely. However, you probably won't have done much low-level hardware stuff, for example, so that'll be new to you (assuming DCU do that).

And most decent compsci courses have high dropout rates at the moment, due to the crazily low entrance points they currently enjoy.

Civilian_Target

damnyanks wrote:

The course at Edinburgh would be rated higher then all IT courses in the Republic of Ireland. The degree's up in Ulster are rated very well.

Dunno about that - Queens and Jordanstown are supposed to be about equal in Computers these days - apparantly Queens used to have a really good dept, but they've really let it slide of late. I'm in Queens and I have to admit to not being impressed by their computers dept. From what I've heard, I'd rate TCD and DCU over either of them, but I don't think any of them are going to hold a candle to the big scientific UK uni's like Imperial, Cambridge, Durham, Leeds, Edinburough etc.

rsynnott

Trinity beat those colleges in a programming competition!

Okay, maybe that's not the best judge of department quality

scojones

Paul_D wrote:

So, what I understand it will be better if I avoid Institutes of Technology.

So Computer Science degrees in DCU, TCD, UCD are the best in Ireland?

2 madramor: you were saying that you personally think that master degrees are waste of time, but then you said that a lot of people do them to get a decent job. I confused.

If you ask me, BSc in Software Development in IT Tralee is the best course in Ireland, but I haven't been on all of the courses

Seriously though, I feel that Tralee far excels above the courses offered in some Universities. I'm basing this on the fact that I have friends in similar courses in UL and UCC, and I'm far more experienced than they are, and we both started college in the same year. I did work placement in Feb, and noticed that I knew a hell of alot more than people on the same work placement from UL, UCC and UCD.

My point here is not to rule out IT's. That, I feel, is a big mistake.

Zombrex

Any of the "big 3" would be fine - Computer Systems in U.L, Computer Applications in DCU and Computer er .. what ever its called in Trinity.

The trinity one is supposed to be more "acedemic", but some people like that. Others like the more hands on approch the other 2 do (not sure you even do work experience in Trinity).

If you can get into any one of those courses you will be fine. Really college is what you make of it, I wouldn't worry too much about the perfect course and worry more about the question are you going to study hard and work hard for the 4 years, cause you know its harder than it looks If you do you will be flying, no matter which of the above you pick.

Plus everything is Masters and PhDs these days...

Zombrex

sjones wrote:

Seriously though, I feel that Tralee far excels above the courses offered in some Universities. I'm basing this on the fact that I have friends in similar courses in UL and UCC, and I'm far more experienced than they are, and we both started college in the same year. I did work placement in Feb, and noticed that I knew a hell of alot more than people on the same work placement from UL, UCC and UCD.

I found the the Universities and the ITs take different approches to teaching "computers".. the universities are more like "We will teach you how to 'program' then you can program in any language on any system", where as the ITs take the approache "This is Java. This is C++. This is Visual Basic" etc.

Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. You find the people from ITs tend to have a lot more actual programming experience, they have written a lot more stuff. But whether they understand the underlying concepts is less clear.

Universites focus more on the underlining concepts, meaning it is easier (if you paid attention) to adapt to new languages and ideas, you are not tied down to knowing Java but no idea about what that means in the wider sense of the industry. The problem is you get a whole load of graduates who can tell you the ins and outs of object orintated design, why it is good, the bad points, new ideas etc, but can't remember how to write a pointer in C++ because the last bit of actual code they wrote was in 2nd year (slight exaggeration but you get the point).

So really if you go Uni or IT you have to compensate yourself for the short coming of each approach.

If one is in an IT you have to make sure you understand the wider aspects of what you are learning, and understand that there exisits a whole world of thought beyond the limits of what you are taught in the IT. The amount of IT grads you meet who are completely oblivious to any other way of working than what they were told, and who think even formating a Java program in a different way is "wrong", is amazing.

If one is in Uni you have to make sure you remember that at the end of the day software engineering involves writing software, so learn the actual software language and keep writing code, even if you course projects are not making you do it.

my 2 cent

Zaph0d

You might as well be on a course with smart people otherwise you'll be bored and the course will be taught at an unambitiously low level. So to an extent go for a course that has high entry requirements.

The university I went to emphasised concepts over specific technologies to the extent that when I graduated I'd never used a PC running windows. This wasn't a problem because you can self teach yourself the basics of any OS in a few days.

Try as they might, a university can't avoid putting youi in contact with some specific technologies so I'd done plenty of unix, c++ etc

One time I got a job on a project to translate a load of legacy code from one language to another. They had been struggling with the project for several years. None of the project team had even heard of compiler design, so they were never going to get anywhere. I'd forgotten most of what I'd learnt about compilers but at least I had a vague idea and could pick it up easily by rereading an old book.

run_Forrest_run

madramor and anyone else who say that ITs should be avoided are talking thru their backside. I went to WIT and did a degree in Commercial Software Development and found to be very good in preparing people for the IT industry. I had an average week of 36 hours compared to a paltry 12-18 hour week for friends of mine who went to Uni. The ITs are great for hand-on work..far more practicals and easier to discuss issues with lecturers/tutors due to the smaller number in class sizes.
The one thing my course did not have but wish it did was work experience. I understand they have brought it in now alright which is a good move.
I thought the intellectual snobbery of university-going people was well dead but infortunately this does not seem to be the way!

dent

Wicknight wrote:

I found the the Universities and the ITs take different approches to teaching "computers".. the universities are more like "We will teach you how to 'program' then you can program in any language on any system", where as the ITs take the approache "This is Java. This is C++. This is Visual Basic" etc.

I take you went to both then? I went to DIT and certainly didn't come across "This is Java. This is C++" while learning compiler theory and A.I.

The difference is that while learning the bigger picture we also discussed the practical application. I believe DCU takes a similar approach.

This also reflects in the science courses. My sister a PhD holder from UCD comments on the high standard of DIT graduates that she now works with.

Some of the comments made here reflect childish attitudes that will quickly be wiped out in a professional enviroment.

The bottom line is that you really should have an interest in the subject or you will either drop out or end up with a degree but no desire to continue into an "IT" profession.

rsynnott

Wicknight wrote:

The trinity one is supposed to be more "acedemic", but some people like that. Others like the more hands on approch the other 2 do (not sure you even do work experience in Trinity).

Nope, that we don't, tho by the end of our four years most people have worked in some form of IT over the summer and so on... Some people also contribute to open-source projects and similar, or do this .

Zaph0d wrote:

Try as they might, a university can't avoid putting youi in contact with some specific technologies so I'd done plenty of unix, c++ etc

Yes, sadly, gone are the days when they used things like LISP machines, which no-one would ever even THINK about using in the real world.

dent wrote:

practical

That word has no place in a university!

dent wrote:

The bottom line is that you really should have an interest in the subject or you will either drop out or end up with a degree but no desire to continue into an "IT" profession.

Sadly, this isn't exactly the case; a lot of people get through, and do have desire to continue into an IT "profession" (for the money, or whatever), but are complete dolts who shouldn't be let near a computer.

Paul_D

I want to thank again all the people who left their comments.

So, there are some candidates in order of my preferences:
DCU
CIT, LIT, DIT
UCD
TCD
Edinburgh University (just because it’s far away)

I’m still not sure which is better, because the more people say their opinions, the more I become uncertain. Then there are other problems, i’m mot irish national, so I have to pay fees, but some people say that because i will have my LC I will be treated like irish, so “free fees”. But nobody know anything exactly, even universities.

rsynnott

Paul_D wrote:

I’m still not sure which is better, because the more people say their opinions, the more I become uncertain. Then there are other problems, i’m mot irish national, so I have to pay fees, but some people say that because i will have my LC I will be treated like irish, so “free fees”. But nobody know anything exactly, even universities.

If you're a European citizen you only have to pay a small part of the fees. Otherwise, you probably have to pay the lot (assuming you're not an Irish citizen).

drfisher

Paul_D wrote:

Then there are other problems, i’m mot irish national, so I have to pay fees, but some people say that because i will have my LC I will be treated like irish, so “free fees”. But nobody know anything exactly, even universities.

You will qualify for free fees an as EU citizen.

Have a look here:

http://www.tcd.ie/Admissions/admissions_info/freefees.html

Then have a look here

https://www.cs.tcd.ie/courses/ba/Introduction.php

Paul_D

unfortunately, I'm not eu national, so I have to pay full fees, something around 5K/year. Needless to say, that it is impossible. :mad:
My school teacher said that universities can also grant me with free fees in some circumstances. But in what circumstances?

I'm planning to get LC with 580-600 points, would this be a good reason for granting free fee status? This question is more important for me rather than doubts about what college to go. It is very likely that I will go to the one which would say that I don’t have to pay anything.

ghostdancer

it's possible you could gain a scholarship to the university based upon the points you get, and how you do it certain subjects. I'm in DCU but i don't know exactly what sorta of scholarship scheme they run, although the information should be available on the DCU website.
you might also be eligible for Grants based upon your own personal circumstances, again I'm not sure of the info, but it should be on the website.

I'm doing 2nd yr CA in DCU, and i'm pretty happy with it. it is tough for most people, and there is a large dropout rate in first year, but i'd put that down to the low points requirements for it recently. If you're going for 580-600 points in LC, then I'd imagine you won't have any problems understanding most of the details of the course, and probably have a sensible attitude towards working and learning. Maths is a core part of first year, but it's no-where near as advanced as LC maths is, more like JC maths. Physics is an option, but it's not even close to LC level either.

Paul_D

ghostdancer wrote:

but it's no-where near as advanced as LC maths is, more like JC maths. Physics is an option, but it's not even close to LC level either.

you must be joking, don't tell me that it is sooo bad , i hoped that finnaly i will have a real math in a third level :cool: , but it seems to be even worse. does it depends on college?

rsynnott

Paul_D wrote:

you must be joking, don't tell me that it is sooo bad , i hoped that finnaly i will have a real math in a third level :cool: , but it seems to be even worse. does it depends on college?

There WAS some moderately difficult maths in Trinity's CS course, but people entering last year and this year get a new "combined CS and ICT" course with much of it excised. (My year was the last to get the original course) To be honest, if you want to do a maths-oriented course, do maths or theoretical physics; don't do CS. (If I was able to start again, I'd do theoretical physics).

drfisher

rsynnott wrote:

There WAS some moderately difficult maths in Trinity's CS course, but people entering last year and this year get a new "combined CS and ICT" course with much of it excised.

That's not true, and I can explain why but it's a lot of detail for this discussion.

To be honest, if you want to do a maths-oriented course, do maths or theoretical physics; don't do CS. (If I was able to start again, I'd do theoretical physics).

That probably is true.