Higher Diploma in Computer Science

[johnnie c]

Has anyone completed this course ? What are your opinions on it and what kind of jobs would you be qualified for ?

[emertoff]

I did it a few years back. Unless its changed radically since then it wont get you very far in IT sorry. Most of the class ended up in Tech Suposrt.

[jungle]

If you can get into them, the course in Software Engineering or the course in Modelling and Numerical Computing (Applied Maths Dept) would be more useful when looking for a job at the end.

[MonTheHoops]

I did it a few years back. Unless its changed radically since then it wont get you very far in IT sorry. Most of the class ended up in Tech Suposrt.

What did you end up doing?

[emertoff]

What did you end up doing?


Corporate Finance

[oddoms]

i did the computer science and software engineering hdips and unless you're really good at programming they aren't really that good to you unless you've got a strong computing background.

[Mr. Monty]

The Dip in Comp Science as far as I know is mainly theory and stuff! Very little programming! Do the software Engineering/ Numerical Modelling course as they have loads of programming.

[WhoElse]

did the Hdip in comp science in UCC in '99-'00, and it was grand. Subject matter was mixed, some of it helpful, some not so much...
A young nervous guy does network topologies and technologies - probably the most hands on and worth knowing. another guy went through basics of computing, a crash course in hardware theory in effect, not bad if you end up working with servers, pcs. the SQL stuff is real low level but fills the CV, and the Java lecturer was so bad we signed a petition to get rid of him - 38k irish a year for reading a book at us... So the second half of the year he was time-sharing with a very smart indian feen who knew java, but whose accent and handwriting were impenetrable. two other modules i've plain forgot!

Was it worth it? I blagged my way in to the esb server team, so yeah, it's a foot in the door, but if you want to program, it's not necessarily the way to go.

Coding wise, all it had was java, and that was poor. Webwise, no html, xml, etc. I was lucky, i ended up working in a field with the most relevance - hardware and networking. otherwise skip it.

the other thing, if you're looking for work in cork, then skip it - network admin roles in cork are rarer and demand fully rounded experience (and are mostly shiftwork in call centres, as there's few big enterprises based in cork), whereas there seem to be loads of coding jobs for sales and manufatcuring.

Look at monster and see what jobs demand, and compare to what the dip offers is my advice.

[paudie]

i did the course in ucc started of with 120'ish the first year it ended up with around 30 finishing it

it's maths and programing they are other subjects but they are mainly filler
a note don't do the management course section, the eye candy is great but it is a total waste of time but a easy course

[WhoElse]

Paudie, did you do the Dip or the full degree?

i did the course in ucc started of with 120'ish the first year it ended up with around 30 finishing it

it's maths and programing they are other subjects but they are mainly filler
a note don't do the management course section, the eye candy is great but it is a total waste of time but a easy course

[johnnie c]

Good reply Who Else. Two questions for you. Is any of the material you covered on the dip relevant to your job and what was your degree in before doing the dip ? Was your degree also a factor in getting the good job that you got ?

[WhoElse]

The only bits that were relavant were network technologies (basically the different networking protocols from soup to nuts, as well as a very 'for-dummies' description of how routers, bridges, etc work), and the other one was... i can't remember the name... but it was basically a run-through of all the hardware principles in PCs/servers, and the theory behind them.
The latter was handy for introduction to things like RAID technologies, virtual memory & pagefiles, CPU queueing and peripherals liek cache RAM - nothing that anyone working in hardware for a while wouldn't pick up themselves, but it would have helped in the interview.

Now it was only all theory, but it helped me learn a bit faster in practise alright.

Priomary degree was English, with a psychology minor - so basically i was blagging my way into IT! :)