Teaching and assessment
You’ll study and learn with academics who are active researchers, experts in their field and have a passion for their subjects. Our approach to teaching will provide you with the knowledge, opportunities, and support you need to grow and succeed in a global workplace. Find out more about our approach to teaching and learning.
Teaching format
A typical week will involve about 10-15 hours of scheduled teaching time. Our courses are based on a series of one-hour lectures with associated laboratory sessions, programming classes and tutorials.
Throughout the course, you will have a personal supervisor responsible for guiding your studies. In addition to any timetabled sessions, you will meet with your supervisor regularly, and you can also go to them at any time should you have any issues, academic or personal. There are problem classes to help you put learning from lectures into practice and weekly one-to-one project supervisions in your final year.
You will also undertake learning outside of the scheduled timetable. This can be through working in the labs, through reading recommended materials or by working through problems. Consequently, you'll need to be self-motivated, self-disciplined and willing to learn outside regular classes.
As you progress through the course you will develop your skills to become a more independent learner. You'll also spend time working on your individual research project later on in the course, in addition to timetabled activity; you will be allocated a project supervisor, with whom you will have regular meetings in addition to timetabled sessions. You can go to your supervisor for support and advice regarding your project.
Timetabled activities
In your first year, you can expect:
| Lectures |
4-6 hours per week |
| Tutorials |
0-2 hours per week |
| Problem classes |
2-4 hours per week |
| Workshops |
0-2 hour per week |
| Practicals |
3-6 hours per week |
| Optional activities |
0-3 hours per week |
These figures are representative of a typical week. Your contact hours will vary throughout the year due to your module choices, non-compulsory classes, exam periods and changes to scheduled activities.
Outside your timetabled hours, you'll study independently. This may include preparation for classes, follow-up work, wider reading, practice completion of assessment tasks, or revision.
In the UK, full-time students are expected to spend 1,200 hours a year learning. That's about 40 hours of classes and independent study each week during semesters. Everyone learns at a different rate, so the number of hours you spend on independent study will be different to other students on your course.
Facilities
Built to the highest specifications, the Department of Computer Science is packed with cutting-edge facilities housed in a modern, self-contained building.
Computer Science houses four software and two hardware laboratories which you will be able to use depending on the topic of your third year project. These facilities are professional grade and used by our research teams so, depending on your interests, you'll get first hand exposure to these environments.
The Department of Mathematics is a community of mathematicians from all over the world, engaged in world-class research and committed to excellence in teaching with a special emphasis on small groups and a friendly atmosphere.
Teaching location
The Department of Computer Science is based on Campus East and the Department of Mathematics is based on Campus West. As a result, you will be taught at locations across campus.
About our campus
Our beautiful green campus offers a student-friendly setting in which to live and study, within easy reach of the action in the city centre. It's easy to get around - everything is within walking or pedalling distance, or you can use the fast and frequent bus service. Take a campus tour.
Assessment and feedback
We use a variety of assessment techniques throughout your course. This allows you to practice different techniques, from report writing, presentations and live demos to timed programming assessments and closed exams. It also means that you are not disadvantaged by being assessed in any one way.
To aid your learning we provide feedback on your assessments in addition to the marks you receive.
We ask our students for feedback on the course at the end of each year. This helps to improve and modify what we do to help meet the needs of our students.
