Computer Science or Computer Systems and Software Engineering

What does the study of Computer Systems involve?

The study of Computer Systems includes: how computers work, and how computers can be used. Although computational science can exist on its own, Computer Systems Engineering involves making computers do useful things in the real world. How can an existing computer system be made to do useful things? We find out. If there is no computer capable of doing that, how can we make a new computer that can do so? We find that out, too.

Cars contain 'embedded' computer systems that need to be responsive to external events, reliably and safely.

Cameras are linked to computers to provide biometric security - such as face and iris recognition, and recognition of walking patterns.

The human genome project is just one that could not have been carried out at all without computers, simply owing to the quantity of data involved.

Current computers have large memories, but not large enough. An increase by a factor of a million would be useful. Current computers are fast, but not fast enough. An increase by a factor of a million million would be useful. That is why we study non-standard computation - such as quantum computing, and bio-inspired computing. (After all, an ant's brain seems to do quite a lot, for its size).

What Computer Systems programmes do we offer?

This Department has, for many years, offered a Computer Systems programme that is of a distinctive kind; and that, being well-established and of a high standard, is now regarded very highly throughout the world.

You can study Computer Systems and Software Engineering, as a fully-accredited Master's degree; or Computer Science as a 3-year Bachelor's degree.

	Qualification	Duration	UCAS Code
Single-subject Computer Science and Engineering
Computer Systems & Software Engineering with placement	MEng	5 years	G461
Computer Systems & Software Engineering	MEng	4 years	G460
Computer Science with placement	BEng or BSc	4 years	G401
Computer Science	BEng or BSc	3 years	G400

See also our complete list of undergraduate courses, which covers a wider variety of subjects.

What can you expect to get out of these programmes?

You will get a lot out of your association with this Department. We have received the highest possible official rankings both for our teaching ('Excellent') and for our research (5*, twice). We are known for the strength of our technology transfer and our industrial collaboration, which is pre-eminent among UK Computer Science departments. Our undergraduate programmes are accredited to the maximum possible extent by professional bodies.

Graduates of our degree programmes are highly employable. Recently, 96% of our graduates gained professional, managerial or technical employment. (By comparison, the national average was 75%.)

We are internationally recognised for our world-class research, which is setting the agenda for some of the big challenges in Computer Science.

We drive our teaching by our research. So the topics we teach are fresh and up-to-date. We maintain a high ratio of staff to students, enabling us to provide extensive practical sessions, problem classes, team projects, small (four-person) tutorial groups in the first year and one-to-one supervision of your finals project.

We offer a supportive, friendly environment in which to learn how to think as a professional computer systems scientist and engineer.

Department of Computer Science

Computer Science or Computer Systems and Software Engineering

What does the study of Computer Systems involve?

What Computer Systems programmes do we offer?

What can you expect to get out of these programmes?

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What can you do with a degree in Computer Science?

Want to explore non-standard computation?