Our courses are designed to equip you with the most up-to-date thinking in computer science, which will enable you to get ahead in your career. In order to further increase your employability and international experience we are now offering a two-year “with-industry” variant of all our Masters courses.

Key Aspects

• You are given the opportunity to go on a placement with a company after the taught part, after which you come back to the University to do your project. During the placement, you will be able to gain further insight into industrial problems and practice that you can take forward into your individual project.
• All our programmes include workshops and training events to equip you with personal and group skills that employers value very highly. We also provide excellent academic and personal support along with comprehensive careers guidance that includes a personal development plan.
• Although the responsibility for finding a placement is with you, our Careers Service maintains a pool of exclusive employers who offer placement opportunities and organises special training sessions to help you secure a placement, from job application to the interview.  Optional 1-2-1 consultations are also available. (If for some reason you cannot or decide not to go on a placement, you revert to the normal variant of your course.)

Curriculum

Taught Component

This variant is offered for all of our MSc Programmes and the content of the taught part of the programme and the motivations for engaging with the different programmes are identical to our existing courses:

• Advanced Computational Methods
• Advanced Computer Science 
• Advanced Distributed Systems
• Advanced Software Engineering
• Agile Software Engineering Techniques
• Software Engineering for Financial Services
• Web Applications and Services

Industry placement

The industry placement is undertaken between the taught part of the course and the individual project. Its aim is to allow students to acquire industrial experience and, especially, develop an appreciation of how the skills acquired in the taught part relate to problems in industry.  If for some reason students cannot or decide not to go on a placement, they revert to the normal variant of the course and proceed immediately to the individual project.

Individual project

An individual project is undertaken full-time after the industry placement. Using the experience gained during the placement, students choose a challenging problem to work on and explore it by privately studying under the supervision of a member of the academic staff.

Start of Programme, Duration and Entry requirements

You can start on the programme in January and October each year, with the first intake being in January 2012. If you start in October, the duration of the programme would be 21 month, if you start in January it is 24 month. The main difference in length between January and October start, is that students starting in January will have a break from July to September after their first semester of taught courses.

Applications or the programme will be considered from all students holding at least a very good second class honours BSc degree or qualification of equivalent standard recognised by the University in a subject with a substantial element of Computing. Applications are treated on an individual basis, however, and so alternative qualifications may be considered, especially in the case of candidates with relevant work experience.

Fees and Scholarships

The fee structure for the programmes is the same as for our other MSc programmes with an additional fee of £600 being charged for the with Industry variant (this additional payment is only due if a student does secure a placement). Home and EU students and overseas students contain details on the fees applicable to our programmes. Fees can be paid in one or two instalments, with the first payment being due on registering with the University to start the programme.

The Department of Computer Science offers Scholarships to students from the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia based on academic merit. For 2012 entry these are set at £2,945 or £3,945. Awards of scholarships are considered automatically when applications are processed and students will be notified in their offer letters of any award made. These scholarships will reduce the amount of fees you need to pay to the University.