The ground floor of the Diamond

Typical Day

A typical Computer Science Week

A large collection of coumputers grouped in tables

A typical week for a Computer Science student will consist of around 24 hours of contact time, with 14 of those hours being in lectures and 10 being in a practial lab and programming on a computer.

Monday

A view of a lecture theatre from the front

Our Monday will have either 3 or 4 hours of Uni time depending on if we have a test or not. With a 12 o'clock start and a 1 hour break (or 2), the day finishes off at 5 after 3 hours of lectures. Machines and Intelligence is all about artificial intelligence and robots, how they interact with their environment, the hisory of them as well as general ethics. Java programming is rather self explanatory, with a lecture teaching us how to use the language to perform certain tasks.

Tuesday

Rows of coumputers arranged in benches

Our Tuesday has 4 hours of contact time, 2 of which being lectures and the other being the practical lab for Java programming where we put to use what we have learnt in the lecture and complete exercises that are given to us. Foundations of Computer Science is the mathematical module, where we learn about different forms of logic, algebra, functions and proofs. Finally there is Web and Internet technology, here we get taught about coding and producing websites using HTML, CSS and Javascript. This day starts at 10am with a 2 hour break between 12 and 3, finishing up at 4pm.

Wednesday

The Diamond

Wednesday is the earliest finish you will have with a 9am start and ending at 1pm. Wednesday contains 2 lectures and one 2 hour software engineering practical session. In the practical, we learn how to program in Ruby using Codio. The lectures consist of Devices and networks in which we are taught about the inner workings of of compter, such as binary arithmetic and many different types of logical circuits. Next is another Foundations of Computer Science lecture.

Thursday

The main helical staircase in the Diamond

Thursday is the longest day of the week with a 9am start and a 6pm finish, it is nice to finally get home at the end. The day begins with a Foundations of Computer Science workroom where you can get help with exercise sheets that are set throughout the lectures.This is followed by Web and Internet technology and a one hour break. Next is another 2 hour Java Programming session that you can attend to catch up on work that you haven't finished or just go to do more Java practice. After another one hour break there is a Devices and Networks computer class, where Exercise sheets that are given out can be completed with help from older students. Finally there is a 2 hour lab session for Machines and Intelligence, where we learn and are assessed on programming NAO robots using software called Coreograph, intitially we used the softwares own pre-built blocks of code to get the robots to perform the task we desired. Now we are writing the programs to perform these tasks ourselves.

Friday

A large collection of coumputers grouped in tables

Finally there is Friday, unfortuantely the timetable doesn't get less busy at the end of the week and with a potential 5 hour day it's a tiring end to the week (at least you get your moneys worth). The day begins with a 2 hour Web and Internet Technology lab session where we use the coding skills that we have learnt in the lectures and practice them over a series of exercies that we are set. After a one hour break comes an Introduction to Software Engineering lecture in which we are taught about project development and are told stories about how small issues in a software team can cause catastrophic faliures when programs are released. After a nice 2 hour break comes another Devices and Networks lecture, followed by a test if needs be.

Full Timetable

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