The first year of your degree course is all about building confidence
and fundamental skills, as well as getting to know how student life
works. In Computing, you will cover the essential mathematics
required for later years, learn to analyse and design computing
devices and algorithms, become a good programmer, and learn the
principles of modern computer architecture. A distinctive feature of our
first year is that you spend a significant amount of time working on
real practical problems. This typically means spending around six hours
per week in supervised practical classes and a similar amount of time
working on your own. This allows us to make sure that you have all the
necessary practical skills alongside the fundamental theoretical
understanding required to be a Computer Scientist.
Computing students also get to study other subjects around the University,
amounting to one third of the first year. Popular subjects include
modern languages such as French or Japanese, business, mathematics,
psychology and physics. You get to choose which subjects you'd like
to do during the first and second week, the only constraint being
that the scheduled lectures and practical work need to fit in with
your Computer Science timetable.
For the Mathematics and Computer Science courses, the first year is
split between Computer Science and Mathematics: since it is a combined
course you need to cover the fundamentals of each subject. Similarly,
on the Computer Science and Electronics course your first year covers
subjects in Computer Science, Electronics and Digital Systems.
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The first year isn't all work though. You will get to make many new
friends during the first year, some of whom will turn out to be lifetime
companions. There are numerous opportunities to join clubs and societies
in the Student Union, and to pursue your favourite sports with the
Athletic Union (Wednesday afternoons are kept free for sport). In
fact, it is unlikely that you will find much spare time at all during
your first year and most students are surprised at how quickly it
goes, especially since there is also the unique Bristol nightlife
to experience.
Example
first year assignment:
In this assignment you are going to make
a database to help a taxi company in the city of Puebla, Mexico.
Your database stores where taxis are, can tell how far a taxi is
from its destination, and can update a taxi position. The city of
Puebla has a very simple street arrangement. All streets are arranged
in a grid around the central Square ( Zocalo). Streets are numbered.
We call North-South streets avenues, and East-West streets lanes.
Avenues and lanes are numbered. Avenue numbers 1, 3, 5, etc. are
the first, second and third avenue to the east of the Zocalo. Avenues
2, 4, 6, etc are the first, second and third avenue west of the
Zocalo. Similarly, lane numbers 1, 3, 5, etc. are the first, second
and third lane to the north of the Zocalo. To make things slightly
more complicated, there is also a one way system. Avenues 1, 4,
5, 8, 9, 12, 13, etc are all one way up North, whereas Avenues 2,
3, 6, 7, are one way down South. Similarly, lanes, 1, 4, 5, 8, 9,
etc are one way west, etc. Your program should maintain the location
of each taxi, and find the nearest taxi when a customer phones in,
given the corner of the Avenue and Lane that the customer is on.
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