Student Writing Award Scheme
Computing Winner Emma McFarland
Deadline: Friday 17th February 2006
Name: Emma McFarland
University: Queen's University, Belfast
"How does your experience of your course compare with any expectations you have had?"
What did I expect from studying Computer Science? Have my expectations been met? Why did I choose to study computing in the first place? Well, to answer the latter question first, I chose to study Computer Science since I have always had an interest in computers in general, from before I started learning how to even use them, until the present time. Having studied a wide range of subjects at school, I was faced with the tough decision of which subject area to choose for University. Browsing through a university prospectus, my eye was drawn to Computer Science - this subject seemed to be interesting, since it was not just about my interest of computers in general, but actually about the construction and design of them. Surely this would be an interesting subject to study, and was bound to provide a good, solid career in the future. Perhaps an underlying reason to follow the computing path was always to gain a job; with so many jobs requiring a broad understanding of computers, I felt that studying this as a degree was bound to allow me to gain a job with relative ease one day.
So what were my expectations of studying computing? Well, I expected to further increase my knowledge of computers, going into much more depth than I had previously learnt. Indeed this has happened. I expected to go into a course consisting mainly of males, as I always felt that this subject would be a male dominated one. Again, this expectation was proved to be true, although I must say that there were a lot more girls than I had expected, even though we are far outnumbered by males. However, this has never bothered me - having won an award last year for my A-Level I.C.T. score at an award ceremony called the Axios Awards, which are to find the top female computing students in the UK, aiming to promote the need for more females to gain careers in the computing industry, I felt proud to be doing something a bit different from what people would just expect a female to do. I think that schemes to promote equal opportunities, like these Axios Awards to encourage female computing students, is excellent, as it makes females realise that they can study computing too.
While I had chosen to study computing, I had not really thought about it too much until just before I started University. It was then that I really began to wonder what exactly to expect in the Computer Science course. Would it be just a practical subject or would there be much theory? Being someone who likes to know the theory behind things, I was pleased to find that we learnt a lot of theory, as well as the practical side. In fact, this theory proved to be extremely important, as not understanding the theory usually meant being clueless in the practical classes. This was especially true when learning how to program, which for me was something completely new. You could not simply turn up at a practical class, but had to read over notes, textbooks, and plan your work before the actual practical class. This was made clear by some people on the course who decided that skipping lectures and paying no attention to theory was okay, as long as they turned up at practical class. These people have now either dropped out, or soon will be. It is therefore important for people to realise the importance of theory in computing, as so many people probably think of computing as being a completely practical subject where students sit on computers all day. Indeed, the lecturer we had for programming during out first semester continuously told us the importance of theory and would go over example programs every week. While some pupils found this boring, many realised that this could be a great help for when we did practical classes and exams.
When I first heard that I would have to study an Applicable Mathematics module in Computer Science, I was slightly scared. I wondered what relevance this had to Computing and felt that it would be a tough challenge. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I thoroughly enjoyed this module as you could get fed up at time just sitting on computers and trying to get programs to work. A nice break from this was to go into a Maths lecture and learn some different things. The module was still related to Computer Science, but was a change from the usual monotony. It should therefore be noted that a module slightly different from the other modules will in many cases keep students interested and the brains working!
So what works well in lectures? Well, from experience, I can say that students find it boring for a lecturer to simply read out notes that he has just given us, or that we can readily download from the Internet. If students know they can get the notes easily anyway, and that the lecturer will be simply reading them word for word from the page, they may see the lectures for a chance to sleep, send text messages to each other across the room, or maybe even to have a lie in and not come to class. It is therefore important to keep students interested. Involving students in the lectures may work - for example, during our first semester studying the degree, we would have Multimedia interactive lectures once a week, where we would get into groups and be given a task to do on a graphics tablet. Students enjoyed this, as they still got to learn the things the lecturer wanted us to learn, but also had a chance to try things for themselves and have discussions with each other. Indeed, turnouts for this lecture far outnumbered the turnout for the other lecture for that subject where theory was just read out. Also, teaching students something that they will find genuinely interesting is likely to captivate them, such as the appliance of computing to something that has happened in the real world, or something that students will see could be useful to them.
What about practical classes? Well, for our practical classes we would be given a booklet each week with exercises to work through, which had to be completed by the end of that practical class. Because if this, lecturers and demonstrators told us the importance of starting a practical exercise before the actual class, so that you could use the class to ask the demonstrators on hand for any help, rather than wasting that lesson typing out things that you could have done before, only to find that you have a problem that you need help with when the practical class is coming to an end and the demonstrators are leaving. It is perhaps the people who ignore this advice who find themselves struggling and doing badly in their practical exams.
Another thing I think should be noted is about assignments. We recently had to hand in a big Multimedia project worth up to 60% of the total marks for that module. Although we had been given it at the start of semester, most students only started it the week before hand-in was due. The lecturer had indeed continuously reminded everyone about the project and stated the importance of how we should be working on it from early on, but a lot of students left it so long that perhaps they will not get as high marks as they could have. So what can be done about that, when warning students doesn't seem to work? Well, when students see a deadline date that seems like ages away, they tend not to panic, or even think about it really, until the week before. Perhaps cutting the project into smaller chunks and having many deadline dates for each part of the assignment would help, as students would pay attention to each deadline date and would have a small part to do maybe every week, rather than one deadline date when the whole thing has to be handed in.
Something I have felt has worked well is having the assessment for modules broken down into small parts. Instead of just relying on an end of semester examination, we have had many small tests and exams throughout the semester that count towards our final assessment mark, which makes things easier and reduces the stress and pressure on students, making them more likely to be able to cope with their workload and so not give up on the subject.
So, to sum it all up, I have leant a lot through studying Computer Science. While it is a tough course, experience shows you what works well when learning it. It helps a lot when lecturers teach the subject in a way that stimulates and captivates the minds of students in lectures, but doing well in computing does not just depend on those who teach us - it is up to us, the students, to use our brains and imagination and the things we have been taught.
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