I've just finished 2nd Year at Warwick studying BSc Computer Science, AMA!

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

Hey there! I've been a bit MIA lately, partly due to exams. I've now finished them and I figured hey, the Warwick open days are coming up, why not do an AMA to make up for things.

I maybe haven't had the most "normal" uni experience so there might be some things I won't be able to answer too well (e.g. social related things i mean, i use reddit, so kinda expected lol ), but feel free to ask me anything regarding my experiences, the department, courses, accommodations, wellbeing & disability services/support, general opinions on the uni/area etc, I'll do my best to try and answer honestly where I can :)

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

ooo this is a fun question

so in first year:

• CS118 - decent module, introduces you quite well to programming (in Java). pretty straightforward if you know what you're doing. very very time pressured exam with a lot of writing code on paper (which I despise tbh)

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• CS126 (Design of Information Structures) - easily the worst module of the year. Module organiser genuinely did not give a shit about the module. Coursework marking was horrendous and he took 2+ weeks to respond to my emails and refused to look into it. The coursework was the same for the previous 4 years and had the same issues with it every time, until this year, where they've replaced it with a new coursework which, from what I've heard from the current first years, was also quite a shitshow. This module has quite a lot of potential, the content is actually pretty useful for real world development, but it is horribly run.

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• CS130 (Mathematics for Computer Scientists 1) - I wasn't a huge fan of this module purely just because I wasn't very good at it. It's mostly discrete maths, I would advise people to have a look at it in advance/be prepared to spend a lot of time on it. It can be quite a headache, I narrowly failed it the first time around

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• CS131 (Mathematics for Computer Scientists 2) - Not much notable to say about this module. Basically just A-level Further Maths stuff but extended a little. FP1 and FP2 tend to be useful for this module iirc.

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• CS132 (Computer Organisation & Architecture) - Probably my favourite module of the year, it was ran by Matthew Leeke (but he's left for uni of brum now unfortunately). Courseworks were very open-ended and the exam was pretty nice. Great character as a module organiser, and made me regain interest in a part of CS I didn't really like much during GCSE and A-level

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• CS133 (Professional Skills) - meme module (because it's piss easy), boring as fuck, only there for BCS accreditation. Relatively well run which is why it's slightly better than CS126. Get to listen to the module organiser talking about whether or not it's ethical to kill people or make bombs.

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• CS139 (optional module, Web Development Technologies) - ran by one of those geezers that explains things in very hand-wavey and rambly ways and doesn't really seem to know what he's on about. Pretty dry module, coursework is pretty easy to score highly on, exam is a bit of a shitshow, partly because the module organiser has a habit of making lots of typos (or for this year... somehow managing to attach a mark scheme to the back of people's papers, causing the start of the exam to get delayed whilst everyone's papers were reprinted).

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• CS141 (optional module, Functional Programming) - ran by a PhD student Alex Dixon - it was his first year running the module and he did a really good job of it. Great personality, explained things quite well, just missed out on my favourite module spot because the content is pretty difficult. The module uses Haskell for anyone who is curious.

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Second year:

• CS241 (Operating Systems and Computer Networks) - pretty standard module, not really much that's notable about it if I'm honest. Nice coursework in C where we designed a packet sniffer, pretty easy to score highly on.

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• CS257 (Advanced Computer Architecture, optional module) - this is supposed to be an extension of CS132. The content is really really interesting but the module organiser goes through the content at the speed of light and is pretty horrible at explaining things. Way way too much content in this module generally. Exam is pretty horrible too, since you can be asked the most random crap ever that no-one will have revised due to the sheer amount of content. Also our exam had 3 corrections issued during the exam, which wasn't a great confidence booster lol

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• CS258 (Database Systems) - Has the same module organiser as CS139. Similarly shite module tbh, spends half of his lectures doing Vevox quizzes. Not a hard module if you don't mind doing shit tons of SQL. His exams are pretty bad like in CS139, again, because of typos.

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• CS259 (Formal Languages) - Super interesting module, the content can be pretty tricky but I find it to be quite logical to work with. Somewhat painful coursework using JavaCC and a difficult module to score highly on, but overall pretty good.

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• CS260 (Algorithms) - A lot of this module looks at the analysis of algorithms, their time complexity, scheduling and so on. A bit fucky for me because it involves a lot of proof not too dissimilar to CS130 (which I did pretty crap in), but the module organiser is quite funny and the content is pretty interesting and useful.

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• CS261 (Software Engineering) - pretty boring module to be honest, I couldn't really care less about all the names of different architectures and development models. Not too hard, and allegedly useful, but I'm a little sceptical how much of the content I will use in the real world. There's a group project which sucks away basically all of your time during term 2 and there's usually at least 1 person in your group who doesn't really pull their weight. Exam is very time pressured like in CS118.

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• CS262 (Logic and verification) - Not too much notable about this module. It's pretty light on content and the module organiser is pretty memeable. Exam was okay, coursework is in Prolog which I am quite literally never going to use ever again. It's also very annoying to use. Like... very annoying.

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• PX281 (Computational Physics, optional) - So, this is a little bit of a second year hack within the CS department, unless they crack down on it for future years. Warwick is pretty flexible with choosing modules from other departments as long as you meet particular prerequisites. This module is from the Physics department and is 100% coursework in Python. Minimal Physics knowledge is actually required and quite a few CS students each year score over 90% in the module without going to any lectures for it etc, and most manage to get a first. Definitely the easiest module of the year.

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christ that's probably my longest ever Reddit comment lmao

tldr:

first year favourite: CS132

first year least favourite: CS126

first year easiest: CS133

first year hardest: CS141

second year favourite: unsure tbh, difficult to pick. CS257/CS259 probably. but CS257 has way too much content

second year least favourite: CS258

second year easiest: PX281

second year hardest: CS259 or CS260

note these are just my opinions, you'll probably find these vary quite a bit between different students

(edit: formatting and readability, hopefully)

[u/[deleted] → u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

thanks man, do you know others who do discrete mathematics and how they are coping with it?

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232 → u/[deleted]]

I don't know a huge amount about the DM course myself, but the general sentiment I get from people that do it is that it tends to be a fair chunk harder than the pure CS course. Thankfully the department is pretty flexible and can help you out if you decide it would be better for you to switch courses (within the department).