4-Term Pathway - Foundation Certificate in Science and Health - Continue to Bachelor of Science (Honours) - Computer Science (Placement Year)

Program Description For students who've finished high school but don’t meet the entry requirements for university, a Foundation Certificate can help them gain entry to an undergraduate degree. After completing this pathway option students qualify for progression to the 1st year of an undergraduate degree at the University of Essex.

A student’s course length is determined mainly by their English language level (UKVI IELTS score). Students on all course lengths take a set of common or similar modules to gain a solid base of skills for university. Students taking a course longer than 2 terms, will take additional modules designed to improve one or more of their English language level, academic skills, and basic knowledge of particular subjects.

Bachelor of Science (Honours) - Computer Science

The BSc Computer Science course is the most flexible of the courses in computing, allowing students to choose from a wide choice of optional modules and to specialize in areas as diverse as assistive technologies, computer games, artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation, Big Data and robotics. If a student has a good ability to think in a computational way, they'll be perfect for this course.

Students also acquire key skills for computer science in the areas of:

• Algorithm analysis and basic computability • Software engineering • Java language principles and application programming interfaces

The School is a community of scholars leading the way in technological research and development. Today’s computer scientists are creative people who are focused and committed, yet restless and experimental. They are home to many of the world’s top scientists, and their work is driven by creativity and imagination as well as technical excellence. More than two-thirds of their research rated “world-leading” or “internationally excellent” (REF 2014).

Students graduate with the ability to explore further how technology influences people’s lives.

Programming at Essex

Teaching someone to program is about opening a door. In the first year at Essex students will study a module that introduces them to programming using Python. They assess students’ ability to think in a programmatic way in the very first week of term and if they require additional support, they offer classes which will boost students’ skills and confidence with programming.