Computer science, University of Birmingham

The department is overcrowded and does not have enough staff. This is especially an issue for the conversion masters students who can lose all their marks for an assignment to automated marking. They also have some lecturers who appear to have no idea what they're teaching and have copied and pasted some book pages into slides. Plagiarism from my experience is rampant on the course, with lots of cheating and copying of code. If you are ever in a team project with a bad team, you either have to leave that module or carry the team, marks are never adjusted. A lot of lecturers mark projects on how pretty they look rather than how complex it is e.g. just build a GUI to get marks. Some of the taught coding practices are years out of date such that you get deprecation warnings. To top it all off, the mental health of students appears to be far worse on this course than others. However, there are a few good lecturers who do care, and they make it bearable. Rant over.

Very poor management of the course, few lecturers are helpful and readily available to help. Little concern for student welfare

The conversion masters is a scam aimed at overseas students. Do not enrol. Two thirds of the course is taught by bundling MSc students onto massive (700 students+) undergrad modules, the rest is taught on a shoestring by lecturers with little grasp of English who copy slides from the internet and play YouTube videos. I’ve not had a single teaching occasion with fewer than 200 students in it, any one-on-one contact, or any personal feedback on work. The course lead introduced the course stating that it was over-enrolled. Help is available for students who’re 'struggling' with the material, but the material is very unchallenging and it’s actually help for students whose English isn't good enough to understand the lectures. Plagiarism is rampant and unpunished – students collaborate in online exams and assignments – and artificially deflates the grades of those of us not willing to take the risk. The same money at a 'worse' uni will get you much more and better teaching.

Professors are nice. Classmates are so kind to help each other. Courses are helpful and I am sure it will help my career.

The MSc conversion course is very intense and I feel that for people that come from non-STEM backgrounds it might be pretty hard at times which leads to some dissatisfaction. Other than that, if you're prepared to work hard, the structure for you to get a very good understanding of Computer Science is there. If you wish to pursue anything in more detail you'd have a solid foundation if you performed well in the course.

don't appreciate students beacuse time schedulling is so bad and many lecture materials are adopted from others

Great and well organised course

very lucrative and very big potential

Staff unapproachable with minimal contact hours. I have friends at other universities who had far better experiences studying computer science.

Really enjoyed the course and the department are always wonderful.

Great course. A couple of shakey modules in the first year but those of currently in review. Even the assignments feel worthwhile and can sometimes be fun! Can't wait for the years ahead.

Really interesting, Amazing building and great lecturers and school staff. 24/7 lab use is life changing