As some of you may or may not know, I flamingoed up my A levels nearly 1.5 years ago, and for the last 7 months I've been working for a small out-sourced IT support company as a BOFH/SysAdmin - and I'm getting a little tired and realised that I dont want to do this for the rest of my life (although there are fun times - like deleting some poor buggers 4GB iTunes store on the server [remember unless you run it, only store work on it ] )

Basically I'm sorting out my uni application for next year, but I cant seem to find a course I want to do. I've got reasonably crap grades (BBE at A2 and C at AS), so I'm not going to be doing something at Kings or Oxford, but equally I'm not the bottom of the class (I hope?). In short I'm looking for a course which goes along the lines of Comp Sci with AI/Software Engineering, or a fully blown Software Engineering course - but hopefully with a more OpenSource twist to it.

Any suggestions for a course along these lines? Any suggestions for a Uni to look at? Any suggestions for a course full stop?

Well, talking from personal experience, there's only one Uni I can comment on: Northumbria. They do seem to have a good IT section. A few IT based courses I know they run are: Computer & Network Tech (what I'm doing), Internet Tech, Comp. Games Programming. Cheap to live there too.

But to the point, you need to decided what it is you want to do at Uni (which you seem to have done), then just look at all the Unis noting courses which are similar to what you want. Narrow the list down a bit to the most relevant ones, then check the places out, have a wander round, get a feel for the places. Ideally you want a course that is exactly what you want in a city that is cheap to live with a good atmosphere for students.

BBE isn't bad really, if it wasn't for the E you'd have done well I'd have thought. I got CCDE (just missed a B in Computing, bah) and everywhere I applied I got accepted. Just avoid Comp Sci courses, they're really popular and not worth the effort. Most people who want to do something computer related but don't know what go for Comp Sci, better to find a course with something a bit more specific on it, it should be more interesting and gives you a less generic degree at the end of it.

Sound advice Bob Its much appreciated, cheers - at the moment I'm going for a nice little "Comp Sci with Distributed & Mobile Networks" course, but I'm not entirely done with my app

After looking around I'm applying for Computer Science at Southampton. Then I think Bristol will be my back-up. Went to look around Soton the other day and the facilities are amazing.

They also do variations on the computer science course in lots of different related fields, mainly taken up during the 3rd (and/or 4th) years of study. They, as most unis, require a good maths qualitfication.

2 years, or so, ago when I originally did my A levels, soton were my first choice and when I visited I was also impressed by the facilities - unfortunately they require ABB (iirc)

Quote from the_angry_angel :

2 years, or so, ago when I originally did my A levels, soton were my first choice and when I visited I was also impressed by the facilities - unfortunately they require ABB (iirc)

I didn't go to Uni because I wanted to get out in the real work and earn some cash instead of getting into debt, but most of my mates went to uni.

The Uni says the want ABB but most of the time they will let you in with lesser grades if your enthusiastic enough. You just got to be lucky but if you ring up you never know, the worse that can happen is they will say no, you havn't lost anything.

One of my mates wasn't going to go to Uni, he got his results and got average grades, rung up a local uni and went can i come and he's there now! He didn't even go through all the system that you do during your a-levels. So its basically luck sometimes.

Like I said what's the worse that can happen, it might just be your day.

Andy.

Fair point Andy

I basically felt the same as you last year - and I may wish that I didnt go this time next year (again), but I figured I might as well see