Course summary

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most exciting and rapidly developing aspects of 21st century technology. It pervades our everyday lives, in image and voice recognition software, data security, intelligent web searching, drones, driverless vehicles, computer games, space exploration and cutting-edge medical advances, and its potential is vast. This is the perfect time to get involved. Our specialist three-year programme will give you all the knowledge, skills and practical experience you need to pursue a career at the cutting edge of AI and help to turn technological innovations into meaningful solutions that transform the way we live. You will learn from leading researchers in the field, covering courses such as machine learning, intelligent agents, bioinformatics, information security and computational finance, and benefit from access to our internationally renowned Computer Learning Research Centre. All this will be underpinned by a solid grounding in the fundamentals of computing and all the essentials of application development, from programming to software engineering, databases to web development, computer graphics to robotics. From the outset you will be experimenting with programming games, robots, Gadgeteer kits, Subversion, JUnit testing, Scrum-based Agile software and more, in our well-equipped laboratories. Alongside core modules in all three years, you will have the flexibility to choose between a range of optional courses, according to your interests. We are a highly respected, research-focused department with a friendly approach and award-winning teaching. We offer a summer work placement programme and a dedicated personal adviser to guide you through your studies. You will also be welcome to join our Computing Society, a thriving community of more than 400 computer enthusiasts from across the College. We are one of only seven departments in the UK to hold the Athena SWAN bronze award for our commitment to increasing female participation in computer science. You will graduate with a wide range of technical skills in computing and AI, as well as valuable transferrable skills such as team working, communication, time management and self-motivation, ready to apply to the world of work. A state-of-the-art Big Data cluster comprising 32 processors, 32 Terabytes of disk storage, GPU and RDMA networking allows you to work on real case studies. We develop both fundamental theory and practical algorithms that feed into the analytics methods and techniques that are in use today. Our research involves cognitive and autonomous agents, automated planning, scheduling and domain-independent search control, and applications in surveillance operations, disaster response missions, and space operations. We collaborate with Microsoft Research, IBM Research, NEC Labs Europe, Facebook, Google, and NASA, which informs our teaching.