Computing – MComp

At a glance

Learn advanced IT design and development skills on a course that combines a normal honours degree with a masters degree. The skills you gain are widely used in many sectors of the economy and you have opportunities to apply them on real projects with external clients. You can also take a paid placement year as part of your studies.

Key points
• Graduate with a masters qualification.• Learn about a wide variety of computing subjects, including management of IT projects.
• Gain additional professional qualifications from in-demand sources including Oracle, SAP, ITIL.
• Gain a third-year placement with major companies like HSBC and Ford.

What is computing?
Computing is used to support businesses throughout the world. Opportunities exist in the major IT systems providers such as Microsoft or Oracle. Organisations in every sector of manufacturing, business and government have IT departments. Alternatively, many experts in IT set up their own companies.

This course

If you have the ambition and talent to progress quickly within the IT industry, this course allows you to develop your IT design and development skills to a masters level.

You get the same solid foundation in computing as honours degree students, but the final two years contain the advanced-level masters modules.

During these final two years, you start to study with students on other masters courses, looking in detail at methods for completing both individual and group research projects in effective IT and good practices.

We are different from other computing courses because we acknowledge that most companies already have IT systems in place. We take you smoothly from the basics to looking at how to design new applications that integrate into existing systems, an area which this course specialises in.

In the second year, you don't just study databases from one manufacturer, you learn the principles behind interoperating with a range of types of databases. You can also study service management and service delivery to the level where you could consider taking professional examinations in ITIL, a qualification in high demand by employers.

Alternatively, you can choose to specialise, going deeper into advanced databases (Oracle), business intelligence (SAS), and systems integration (SAP). You also have opportunities to gain external qualifications from leading vendor organisations.

You get the chance to apply what you’re learning on our professional projects module. This module gives you the opportunity to develop a portfolio working on real projects with external clients, or internal clients from across the University.

You then have the option to build on this experience with a placement year at a major company. Thanks to this course’s strong links with employers and industries, you can take advantage of first-class work placements with companies such as • HSBC • Lloyds TSB • Eli Lilley • NPower • Ford. The portfolio you build on your professional projects module helps you to prove your abilities to these employers.

Key areas of study
Key areas include • understanding business computing needs and analysing requirements • building practical systems using web, database technologies and programming • hardware and managing systems security. • service design and delivery

You can also get extra support for common problem areas such as mathematics.