University of East Anglia (UEA), MSc, Computer Science

The MSc Computing Science is designed for the graduates of non-computing subjects to study computer technologies and skills to broaden their knowledge and to create new career prospects. It is a 12-month full-time course but may be studied part-time over 24 months.

The training in this course not only teaches essential computing technical knowledge but also develops generic, transferable skills such as in communication, critical thinking and reasoning, problem solving, independent and team working and project management, with an aim to make the graduates of this course professionally competitive and flexible in a challenging and changing employment environment. Thus, the graduates can find employment in a wider range of careers in industry, business, public sectors, education and research institutions, working as diverse roles, ranging from, software developers, systems analysts, data analysts, IT managers, to independent consultants and academic or commercial researchers.

Teaching and Assessment

• Hybrid positioning technologies for location based services with iPhone

• Predicting earthquakes with time series data mining

• An application of video shot detection

• Machine learning ensemble methods for identifying fake web sites

• Predicting the results of Tennis matches in real time

Career opportunities

Students have on average 15 hours of contact time per week with teaching staff through lectures, laboratory sessions and seminars, though this may vary depending on module choices. Additionally, students should allocate at least 25 hours per week for study, coursework assignments and projects.

The course is delivered through lectures, seminars, directed studies and laboratory exercises, involving individual and team work. The assessments are carried out by coursework and/or written examinations. Students will learn modules including Research Techniques, Object-Oriented Programming (in java) and Software Development Methodologies with UML (Unified Modelling Language), Databases, and Internet and Multimedia Technology. These are all integrated in a Web based framework and students are grouped as teams to design and implement a substantial Web-based application. Students also take few optional modules, from the optional module list, which includes Data Mining, Applied Statistics, Networks, Systems Engineering, Systems Development, Artificial Intelligence, Image, and Speech and Language Processing.

Starting in the Spring Semester to August, students will undertake an MSc Dissertation project on a topic that is usually related to the School's research areas, often in collaboration with an outside body. A project requires students to apply the knowledge and skills they have learned from the course to carry out in-depth research on a topic, or develop a working system for various applications. Some project work may be done with companies and could involve paid placement at a company.