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>> No. 5083 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 4:44 am
5083 Comp Sci with 2 A Levels
So, thanks to depression and a poor work ethic, I'll only end up with 2 A Levels (Maths and Computing), plus the EPQ thing if I get round to doing it. Having been told that I can go to Uni next year (albeit a shit one), I'm looking at uni's offering Computer Science or something similar that take the equivalent of 2 A Levels (around 200 UCAS points). Uni of Wolverhampton seems to stand out but to be honest, the choices aren't very inspiring. So, my questions: 1) what is the Uni of Wolves like? 2) Is it worth just doing a foundation degree for a year or two then trying to get into a better uni?

Cheers ladm8s
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>> No. 5084 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 5:16 am
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>>5083
Have you considering doing another A Level (or two) now and applying next year?
>> No. 5085 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 8:38 am
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You won't get your money's worth from any university that will take you with your current grades. I would strongly recommend putting off university for a year and resitting your A-levels. Talk to your head of sixth, preferably scheduling a meeting with your parents involved. Explain your situation and why you performed poorly, and ask them what the best course of action is to get the best possible grades. If you impress on them that you're serious and motivated, they're likely to go the extra mile to help you.

Make a plan and think systematically about how best to use your time. Download copies of the syllabus for your A-level subjects and go through line-by-line, identifying your strengths and weaknesses. Get a big wall calendar, mark up your exam dates and work backwards to plan a revision schedule. Leave some empty space, to give yourself a buffer to catch up if you slip behind for whatever reason. Focus on the big picture and hunt for the low-hanging fruit of easy marks.

The Data Protection Act means that you are entitled by law to see copies of all your marked exam papers, including the examiner's notes. This is an invaluable tool in identifying your strengths and weaknesses. Speak to your school or college's exams officer, who can request copies from the exam board; If they're not forthcoming, write directly to the exam board.

Many sixth-form colleges specialise in offering one-year retake courses, so it's worth investigating your options if your sixth form doesn't seem very supportive.

Do mention your re-sits in your UCAS application. Admissions officers like to see evidence that you're a determined grafter rather than someone who just cruised through their exams. Talk about why you did poorly the first time around and what you learned in the process.
>> No. 5086 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 10:51 am
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>>5085
This. This is your education we're talking about here, don't go cheap and don't settle for anything but the best.
>> No. 5087 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 5:01 pm
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>>5084 I could, but I'd have to pay. I was looking at Access To Higher Education courses last night but it seems that I couldn't go straight from A Levels to them, at least not at the place I was looking at.

Forgot to mention that I have an AS in Business Studies (only an E). Could I do the exam somewhere and learn the course by myself (it's not hard...), retaking the AS as well as doing the A2? 3 A Levels would really make things a bit easier.

>>5085 Thanks for the post, it's very useful. The thing is with my current school, I'm 19 so they won't have me back next year. I did do AS's at another school but it was a terrible place and I didn't settle so did badly and went back to my old school to retake. When I've talked with the careers woman, she seems to suggest that the only real options are apprenticeships (not sure about this) or Uni from September or whatever. I'm not so sure about this, surely there are ways to boost my grades and make myself look like a good prospective student at a decent Uni?

Anyway, regretting a lot of things right now (why choose Maths/Physics/Computing for AS - was I mad?!) but I saw on some other thread on /uni/ that some lad managed to go to a a good Uni at 24 so I guess there's still hope. I just don't want to waste any more time/money.
>> No. 5088 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 5:37 pm
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>>5087
Yes, you can do it by yourself and just pay a fee to sit exams. For a lot of people (myself included) I think it'd work out better if that's how they did it first time around.
>> No. 5089 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 5:42 pm
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>>5087
Similar situation to you, I took Maths/Physics/Computing/Psychology for AS and fell ill part way through the first year and ended up taking four years to get mediocre A-levels.
Despite being pessimistic I applied to do computer science at a few unis, albeit not as prestigious as I would of liked still not bad places. I managed to get a place despite not having the UCAS points required. So am quite happy.
My back up was to do a foundation degree.
>> No. 5090 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 5:49 pm
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>>5089
>not as prestigious as I would of liked
>> No. 5091 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 6:19 pm
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>>5087

If you're still interested in retaking your A-levels, then contact your local FE colleges. The funding situation is a little bit complicated, so have a word with their admissions department.

All the access courses I'm aware of are only open to students over 19. If the idea of taking a bit of time away from education appeals, then an access course might be a really good option. You could spend this year doing voluntary work, or save up and do a bit of travelling. Next year you could enrol on an access course while continuing to work full- or part-time (most access courses run in the evening and are designed to fit around work). If you're sensible, you could end up with a substantial chunk of savings to take with you to university, and a lot of valuable life experience.

Forget about the "I guess there's still hope" nonsense. The idea that your A-levels are this one-time make-or-break deal is bullshit. If you balls them up then you've got a slightly tougher time of it, but you are by no means out of the race. Even if you decided to start a career and come back to education later, you'd still have loads of options. Once you're in your twenties, universities start to regard you as a mature student and don't really care what qualifications you have - admissions departments treat mature applicants completely differently and are far more concerned about experience and how you come across at interview.

In some respects, you've dodged a bullet by not going straight to university. One of the real flaws of our system is that young people are expected to choose a degree at a very young age, with very little to base that decision on. A lot of people realise too late that they've taken the wrong degree course and can't get funded for the course they want to take. Although not by choice, you've been given the opportunity to take a bit of time to explore life outside of school and have a think about what you really want to do.

A friend of mine is stuck in exactly that problem at the moment - straight As at A-level, got onto a prestigious science course at a good university, only to realise in her third year that she hates lab work and really wants to be a doctor. She's now in the unenviable position of trying to find ~£40,000 to study in Eastern Europe.

You don't have to take the conventional route, you don't have to feel inferior because you ballsed up your A-levels. Young graduates tend to be naive and lacking in practical skills, which is why a lot of employers really respect people who've taken a sideways route. For example, I know several recruiters who specifically look for Open University graduates, because they know you've got to be tough to stick out that kind of studying. I know others who prefer HNDs to BScs, because the HND syllabus is much closer to the needs of industry than an academic degree course.

If you want to work in the software industry, you might want a comp sci degree, or you might want to teach yourself Rails or iOS development, knock together a couple of personal projects and blag an internship at a startup. Shake off the panic and disappointment of your A-level results and have a think about the big picture - what are your goals in life, and what options do you have to achieve them? Contrary to what your teachers might have told you, there are many ways to skin that cat.
>> No. 5092 Anonymous
4th March 2014
Tuesday 7:04 pm
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>>5090

As the kids on the street say, "El oh fucking el!"
>> No. 5100 Anonymous
7th March 2014
Friday 5:03 am
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Alright lads, OP is back with a couple of questions. Cheers for the advice so far, it's really helped me see things in a new light.

Anyway, I do counselling every Thursday so I used mine today to get my counsellor's opinion on me not going to Uni next year and taking a break of sorts from education while I get my shit together, maybe paying to do an A Level and retake any exams I fuck up this June so I have a chance of getting into a good uni. She seemed to be more open than the careers woman to the idea but still was hesitant when it came to paying for eduction outside Uni. She thinks that a degree in Comp Sci even at a shit Uni like London Met or whatever is still a better option. I'm not convinced myself, especially when I saw the figures for employment of graduates within something like half a year. I'm not wasting 3 years of money and time for something that puts me at a disadvantage with employers.

I suggested that in the year or so I'll have free, I could work on my programming skills while working somewhere to get some money for paying for education (if I can't get any grants or whatnot) but she seems to think that the degree content varies too much across uni's for this to be worthwile. Is she right?

Also, something I've seen on t'net but never given much thought to until now: would it possibly be a good option to study in like Germany/the Netherlands or other countries that have English speaking courses with low fees? I get the idea that it might look good on the CV for employers but am I right? Sure, I'd be moving away for a few years, coming back when I could but the whole foreign country, next experiences thing might be beneficial to me.

Fucking A Levels, mate... Didn't have to worry about any of this shit when doing the piss-easy GCSE's lol
>> No. 5101 Anonymous
7th March 2014
Friday 12:18 pm
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>>5100

I think that your counsellor is wrong on both counts. The idea that "a degree is a degree" has never been true, but now more than ever it matters to do the right course at the right institution. There are far more graduates than jobs, so employers can afford to be choosy. A CS degree at a bad university is more valuable than an arts degree at a middling uni, but it's in your interests to get into the best possible institution - you're paying the same price regardless.

Her views on the value of practical programming skills are utterly wrong. Both universities and employers place a great deal of value on practical experience, and the fundamental concepts of computing are universal across all platforms and programming languages. Dreggy bottom-tier universities all teach very similar courses based around Java or whatever Microsoft were selling five years ago; The universities worth attending teach very diverse, theory-led courses using a variety of programming languages and paradigms.

IME, practical experience is far more valuable in the software industry than academic qualifications. If you've got a decent portfolio of personal projects, I could get you an interview tomorrow with half a dozen companies, regardless of your qualifications. Software is one of the few industries where you can easily prove your skills rather than relying on credentials - most of my clients are completely uninterested in what qualifications I have, but just want to see my Github profile. Going into uni with some programming experience gives you a huge advantage in managing the course workload and gives you far better opportunities for summer internships.

A lot of CS graduates don't really know how to code, and most people in the industry know it. We refer to it as the "fizzbuzz problem" - graduates who can talk the talk, but can't write even the simplest software. We know that these people can blag their way through university with decent grades, but they're completely useless as software developers. These people do get jobs, usually at the sort of clueless consultancies that fuck up government IT projects, but do you really want to be working with those people?

If you work hard on writing good software, the rest is sort of irrelevant - you'll breeze through a degree course, and your grades won't matter anyway when you're looking for work. Competent, motivated software developers are a scarce and valuable commodity.

Studying abroad is potentially a good option and can be substantially cheaper. If you're considering it, make sure to do your research. Berlin is the startup capital of Europe, so that might be worth investigating.
>> No. 5102 Anonymous
7th March 2014
Friday 7:20 pm
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>>5101
To back up the point about experience over education, I've dealt with graduates with good grades who are absolutely useless in real life, and I've dealt with those whose grades were not so hot but did at least have a good head on them with lots of common sense. We have a bunch of apprentices in our office, with varying levels of education, and the brightest button of the lot is the one who dropped out of uni in his second year.
>> No. 5103 Anonymous
7th March 2014
Friday 7:32 pm
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>>5102
It's not particularly important, but what industry are you in?
>> No. 5104 Anonymous
7th March 2014
Friday 8:13 pm
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>>5103
I'm in IT. I've seen the same pattern elsewhere, though in those cases I've only seen the ones that actually got the job, and didn't get to see if they were the best of a bad bunch or managed to bullshit their way through the process.
>> No. 5105 Anonymous
7th March 2014
Friday 8:31 pm
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>>5083
By the way what is A level Comp Sci like? I almost took it but chose business studies instead.
>> No. 5107 Anonymous
7th March 2014
Friday 8:41 pm
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>>5101 Thanks mate. I thought she might be talking shit, but then outside of the actual subject (even then, they teach VB.Net now to the year below!) my school doesn't seem to know much about the whole software development/computer science thing and they kind of apply who they do know about other subjects or just Uni in general to it, which doesn't particularly work well IMO.

So, now I know it is a good idea to spend my year learning as much as I can about programming and the theories behind it (assuming I don't end up in some other school taking a new A Level and retaking others) while building a portfolio to show I am actually competent enough, I'm considering trying to get an apprenticeship at a tech firm for the year to give me something to do, with structure so I don't get lazy and stay in bed all year. I know they aren't just everywhere but it's probably still worth a try, the experience and networking could be invaluable. It'd save me from doing a 4 year degree with a placement as well, which would be a nice option to have. Is this actually a reasonable idea or is there too little chance of getting a placement somewhere?

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