[SebKom]

Well, I am not really sure on how to begin this thread but I will do my best. Here we go:

I am a greek high school graduate and I am currently doing a foundation course in UK. I was planning to stay on the university I am right now and follow their Computer Science course but, after around 2 weeks here, I am having some doubts about my final decision. Good thing is that I can transfer to some other Universities. Bad thing is that my high school marks aren't that good for the so called "good" universities and they are most probably not accepting me after a foundation year neither.

You may wonder why I didn't stay in Greece: The fact is that 90% of the greek universities are really bad and it's difficult to get into the reamining 10% (mainly because it reduces to around 2 or 3 choices if ie you only want to study Computing/IT).

You may also wonder why I am dissapointed about the university I am currently in: Well, it's only a foundation year but my idea of a good university consists of teaching staff that are really interested in you and are always there to hear you and generally consider you as someone with ambitions. Things weren't like that and today it got worse: We had our first Programming Lab and to my great disappointment we were "thrown" in a big class with PCs, were given a bunch of papers with C++ examples (but no explanation, just the code) and were told to write what we read. So, I spent two hours of my life copying C++ code without understanding 99% of it. I understood 1% of it, but that's because of my knowledge and if it is about to go on like this I can return to Greece and spend my family's money in another way...

So, here I am, alone in UK with no idea on what to do. I am really disappointed that I sometimes think it was a big mistake coming here. It's not just a money matter, it's that I am probably wasting a year of my life.

I am really lost as you can probably understand. Any piece of advice?

P.S 1: I don't want to write the university's name, just in case I am really wrong about it.

P.S 2: Only encouraging thing is that Steve Jobs had eduaction "issues" too so I can hope...

[iMOTOR]

Sorry to hear about your situation, that's definitely not the way to teach computer science. Just curious, it sounds like your objective is to write software, or do you want to get into information technology?

[Ghoser777]

Do stuff on your own - I've learned very little from classroom exercises, and much more from my own adventures. (This is coming from a teacher - my best students in comp sci do stuff I don't tell them to do, and they learn a lot more and connect ideas better than everyone else).

[SebKom]

Haven't made my mind yet and, to be honest, I don't clearly get where Computer Science differs to Computing or Information Technology. My picture about it is that Computer Science is more theoretical while Information Technology is more practical. Like, CompSci being about how to create tools and IT being about how to use them. But then again, I am not sure!

P.S 3: I added a P.S to my first post.

[SebKom]

Originally Posted by Ghoser777 

Do stuff on your own - I've learned very little from classroom exercises, and much more from my own adventures. (This is coming from a teacher - my best students in comp sci do stuff I don't tell them to do, and they learn a lot more and connect ideas better than everyone else).

Does that also mean "Go back in Greece"? It's not only about knwoing how to do something but also about given the chance to do it. I am talking about research options, industry links, etc. Like, will a company prefer a greek or graduate rather than an english?

P.S 4: Sorry for the double post, if anyone thinks I should merge them just tell me!

[Doofy]

OK dude. Couple of things to realise:

1) It's just a foundation course. These things were essentially designed to get people who shouldn't be in university into university so that the government's figures look good. Don't expect too much from it - it's just a year earning your passport into proper education.

2) The UK education system is crap. Period.

If I were you, I'd stick on the foundation year and then once done look around for a decent uni which does what you want it to. AFAIK, some of the best IT unis in the UK are the ones which used to be "polytechnics" (Bristol, for example, IIRC).

[SebKom]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

If I were you, I'd stick on the foundation year and then once done look around for a decent uni which does what you want it to. AFAIK, some of the best IT unis in the UK are the ones which used to be "polytechnics" (Bristol, for example, IIRC).

Does what I want it to do in terms of subjects being taught, right?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by SebKom 

Does what I want it to do in terms of subjects being taught, right?

Yep. And in terms of the quality of teaching.

Best bet, I reckon, is to stay on the foundation year you're on and go looking for your next uni for the course proper. Jump on some UK IT forums and ask around for which unis are good, I guess.

[hayesk]

Computer Science should teach a lot of theory. Algorithm and data structure design, analysis, optimization should be featured heavily. There should be some practical stuff like language constructs and application, but you should be expected to figure out a lot of that using the theory.

If the school just teaches you how to write a program - then it's not computer science, and you won't learn how to write good software.

[goMac]

While your course sounded awful, I have a lot of friends who do computer science stuff and are surprised that the professors don't hold their hand through the course. It's always stuff like "I went to class, and the professor wrote a bunch of pseudo-code on the board, and when I had questions, they said to read the book."

If you go into computer science, you're going to have to read the book, and you're going to have to prepare yourself for not slacking through the course. A professor having his/her students just copy down code is very unusual, but it's not as unusual for a professor just to turn you loose in a lab and expect you to be able to start coding things on your own. If you have trouble, often you are expected to do research on your own (especially in the internet age.) Part of computer science is learning to be able to create solutions yourself instead of having your professor create a solution for you.

I've been taking a break from school for the last few years (resuming after this summer), but I was one of a few in my classes that had prior experience in programming. I was pretty lucky, I taught myself assembly during the first day of my assembly course (always had the fewest CPU cycles for my code in the simulator too), and I didn't have the issues with OOP that other people seemed to have (not to mention, the University pushed me directly into the Sophmore Comp Sci classes as a Freshman). But Computer Science is hard for those that haven't done programming before.

You didn't mention if you already know any programming. If you don't, take some time, and teach yourself a language, maybe C or even REALBasic. Just something simple to get you started. If you find it frustrating, CompSci may not be for you. If you find it engaging, you're probably pretty good for CompSci.

[iMOTOR]

Originally Posted by SebKom 

Haven't made my mind yet and, to be honest, I don't clearly get where Computer Science differs to Computing or Information Technology.

The term Computer Science is pretty broad, it really is anything relating to the science of computing. You don't really need to be a computer scientist to do IT work, normally IT people mostly do troubleshooting, end user support, and general maintenance and system admin. Most of the IT folks I know wouldn't be able to write an application if their life depended on it, but they can solve ID10T errors.

Originally Posted by hayesk 

Computer Science should teach a lot of theory. Algorithm and data structure design, analysis, optimization should be featured heavily.

Which in my opinion is essential if you ever want to write software, not just in assembly but in higher level languages too. A firm grasp of computer science is kind of a sine qua non of writing software.

Originally Posted by goMac 

While your course sounded awful, I have a lot of friends who do computer science stuff and are surprised that the professors don't hold their hand through the course. It's always stuff like "I went to class, and the professor wrote a bunch of pseudo-code on the board, and when I had questions, they said to read the book."

If you go into computer science, you're going to have to read the book, and you're going to have to prepare yourself for not slacking through the course. A professor having his/her students just copy down code is very unusual, but it's not as unusual for a professor just to turn you loose in a lab and expect you to be able to start coding things on your own. If you have trouble, often you are expected to do research on your own (especially in the internet age.) Part of computer science is learning to be able to create solutions yourself instead of having your professor create a solution for you.

What's the point of going to school, a person can definitely learn on their own, on their own.

[SebKom]

I am underlining it just to make things clear: I am not doing my actuall course yet, I am in my foundation year right now.

It's just that I am worried about the possibility of things not being as I expected...

[goMac]

Originally Posted by iMOTOR 

What's the point of going to school, a person can definitely learn on their own, on their own.

Oh, I completely agree. But, IMO, going to school refines what you already know. Not to mention it gives you the diploma which helps you when getting jobs...

I think there are a lot of smart CS people out there who never went to school. But I also think pretending school is worthless is a mistake. For me, in general the courses didn't teach me very much new general stuff. But the courses that I took did refine my class design skills, in addition to giving me a deeper understanding of how things work.

But I agree. I think experience with programming outside of classes is extremely important in gaining a deeper understanding of CS.

[King Bob On The Cob]

Come across the pond :-P

We've got tons of great CS Universities here in the US.

MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford, UIUC, CMU.

[Peter]

decide if you want to do Computer Science or IT.

[Peter]

just write the uni, not like they'd care. Or just say which town/city it's in - don't worry about it.


My uni blows chunks.
<--

[SebKom]

@ King Bob On The Cob:

Unfortunately, that's not a choice. I can't handle the cost to go in USA.

@ Peter:

It's in London but I don't really thing there is a point about writing its name.