COMPUTER SCIENCE MSCI (HONOURS)

SYLLABUS

First year

Students will take the following compulsory first-year modules:

- Object-Oriented Programming: provides an introduction to object-oriented modelling and programming using Java.
- Programming with Data: explores various aspects of data storage, processing and analysis.

Second year

Students will take the following compulsory second-year modules:

- Foundations of Computation: introduces fundamental algorithms, data structures and ideas about formal languages at the heart of modern software.
- Foundations of Computation (Accelerated): Accelerated version of CS2001 for direct-entry only with background material from core first-year modules and all of CS2001.
- Computer Systems: develops skills in programming in C, systems programming, digital logic and low-level computer organisation.

Honours (third and fourth years)

In third year, you must take the following compulsory modules:

- Logic and Reasoning: covers the foundations of logic that are relevant to computer scientists, with an emphasis on automatic reasoning and decidability. Topics include propositional and predicate calculus, various proof techniques, and Goedel's incompleteness theorem.
- Computational Complexity: introduces Turing machines, non-determinism and pushdown automata, followed by study of decidability, simulation and the Halting Problem. 
- Software Engineering Team Project: gives a broad overview of software engineering, presenting the fundamental aspects as a collaborative professional activity including its concerns and approaches. Students apply these concepts and practices to a substantial software engineering project as part of a team. 

In addition to the compulsory modules, in third and fourth years, you will choose from a wide variety of advanced options, including modules in cyber security, video games and computer graphics.

Here is a sample of Honours modules which have been offered in previous years:

- Advanced Communication Networks and Systems
- Artificial Intelligence
- Component Technology
- Computer Architecture
- Computer Graphics
- Computer Security
- Concurrency and Multi-Core Architectures
- Constraint Programming
- Data Communications and Networks
- Data Encoding
- Databases
- Distributed Systems
- Human Computer Interaction
- Logic and Software Verification
- Operating Systems
- Programming Language Design and Implementation
- Signal Processing: Sound, Image, Video
- Video Games Fifth year

During your final year you must take the following compulsory module:

- Individual Masters Project: allows students to spend one semester dedicated to undertaking a major software engineering or research project in a specific topic in computer science, such as Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Human Computer Interaction or Networks and Distributed Systems under the guidance of an individual supervisor.

In addition to the compulsory module, you will be able to choose from a variety of modules at Masters level, providing advanced training in computer science. In previous years, Masters-level modules have included:

- Artificial Intelligence Principles
- Artificial Intelligence Practice
- Critical Systems Engineering
- Data Ethics and Privacy
- Data-Intensive Systems
- Human Computer Interaction Principles and Methods
- Information Visualisation
- Interactive Software and Hardware
- Language and Computation
- Machine Learning
- Principles of Computer Communication Systems
- Software Architecture and Design
- Software Engineering Principles