Course summary

Looking for an integrated masters programme that will set you apart from other computer science undergraduates and set you on course for a high-level career? This five-year MSci programme offers a thorough grounding in computer science and allows you to specialise in artificial intelligence, as well as gaining hands-on skills and experience during a coveted year in industry. You will also have the chance to select some courses from our postgraduate MSc programmes and to showcase your abilities in an extended final year project. It is particularly recommended if you want to progress to postgraduate study or a specialist career in artificial intelligence or related fields. AI is one of the most exciting and rapidly developing aspects of 21st century technology. On this programme you will learn from leading researchers in the field, covering topics such as computer learning, intelligent agents, neural networks, 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 thorough grounding in the fundamentals of computing and the essentials of application development, from programming to software engineering, databases to web development, computer graphics to robotics. From the outset you be experimenting with programming games, robots, Gadgeteer kits, Subversion, JUnit testing, Scrum-based Agile software and more, in our well-equipped laboratories. Our progressive curriculum has been developed in consultation with industry, with a modular structure that gives you the flexibility to tailor your degree to your own 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 thriving Computing Society. 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. We are also ideally located in the famous M4 corridor and enjoy close links with many of its leading technology companies. If you are unable to complete your year in industry you will have the option of transferring onto our four-year integrated masters programme. 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