Ask HN: dealing with weirdly-named degrees
I'm a UK-based web dev finally going to university in order to round out my knowledge with a degree in CompSci, trying to decide between London and Birmingham. Imperial College London generally seems to rank as the best computer science degree in the UK after Cambridge and Oxford, but for some reason I can't fathom they've called this degree "Computing", which tbh sounds closer to something in IT support and seems highly likely to be understood as such by most clients/employers. What's ICL's motivation for naming their CompSci degree in this way, and if I were to apply for it, is there anything to stop me from calling it Computer Science on my CV?
13 comments
Given you already have a few years of experience which is a bit more important than just a degree (IMO), I would not worry so much. "Computing" is not "IT support" (no one gets a degree in that) and those are good unis you mention, so why in the world would they be offering a silly degree in "IT support"? I have never heard of such a thing actually.
If the company (manager / HR people) you are interviewing with actually think like what you worry about, you do not want to be working there because that is a sign of a bad company that knows nothing of IT or respects developers. We are not mere plumbers (I am from the US and the UK attitude towards developers has been a bit annoying over the years, but it does seem to be changing). Although it'd be nice to be paid as much as plumbers...
My M.Sc. from Edinburgh was in "Informatics" because that is what they call Computer Science, and my M.Sc from UEA was in "Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining" aka AI/Machine Learning. I would assume you will have to do a final-year project, so a line in your CV describing that ought to be enough to show you are a developer and not a help desk jockey. (along with your previous work experience)
But I wouldn't call it "Computer Science" though - if some jobsworth actually decides to validate the contents of your CV (they usually don't and you do have work experience), the renaming of the degree might influence their opinion of you etc... e.g. "did they actually go to ICL?"
If the company (manager / HR people) you are interviewing with actually think like what you worry about, you do not want to be working there because that is a sign of a bad company that knows nothing of IT or respects developers. We are not mere plumbers (I am from the US and the UK attitude towards developers has been a bit annoying over the years, but it does seem to be changing). Although it'd be nice to be paid as much as plumbers...
My M.Sc. from Edinburgh was in "Informatics" because that is what they call Computer Science, and my M.Sc from UEA was in "Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining" aka AI/Machine Learning. I would assume you will have to do a final-year project, so a line in your CV describing that ought to be enough to show you are a developer and not a help desk jockey. (along with your previous work experience)
But I wouldn't call it "Computer Science" though - if some jobsworth actually decides to validate the contents of your CV (they usually don't and you do have work experience), the renaming of the degree might influence their opinion of you etc... e.g. "did they actually go to ICL?"
This is my guess, I have no direct knowledge here.
Imperial College London's "Computing" degree is described at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/courses/undergraduate/compu... as a program where you can "study the engineering of computer hardware and software alongside the mathematical principles of computing." So it's not just computer science. Compare this to the "Electrical Engineering and Computer Science" (EECS) degrees at MIT, UC Berkeley and other places.
As for changing the name on your CV/resume, whether that's okay depends on the hiring customs for your location and field. That said, I think you're overthinking it. Prestigious schools and employers and people sometimes use unusual names as a mark of distinction. You can get a "Computer Science" degree from any fifth-rate night school, but all the fancy employers you'll presumably be eligible for after graduating should know what a "Computing" degree from Imperial College London is.
Imperial College London's "Computing" degree is described at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/courses/undergraduate/compu... as a program where you can "study the engineering of computer hardware and software alongside the mathematical principles of computing." So it's not just computer science. Compare this to the "Electrical Engineering and Computer Science" (EECS) degrees at MIT, UC Berkeley and other places.
As for changing the name on your CV/resume, whether that's okay depends on the hiring customs for your location and field. That said, I think you're overthinking it. Prestigious schools and employers and people sometimes use unusual names as a mark of distinction. You can get a "Computer Science" degree from any fifth-rate night school, but all the fancy employers you'll presumably be eligible for after graduating should know what a "Computing" degree from Imperial College London is.
Equally though, they also offer an EE degree that claims to combine EE with Computer Science:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/courses/undergraduate/elect...,
And to add to the confusion, they offer a Mathematics & Computer Science MEng:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/courses/undergraduate/mathe...
...so that special Computing title for the true Computer Science course is doubly unusual. You're probably right that I'm overthinking it though, and maybe subconsciously looking for reasons to "productively procrastinate" rather than actually doing the research and making the decisions I need to.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/courses/undergraduate/elect...,
And to add to the confusion, they offer a Mathematics & Computer Science MEng:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/courses/undergraduate/mathe...
...so that special Computing title for the true Computer Science course is doubly unusual. You're probably right that I'm overthinking it though, and maybe subconsciously looking for reasons to "productively procrastinate" rather than actually doing the research and making the decisions I need to.
You don't want to have given incorrect information on your CV, and writing a different major than you have is clearly incorrect; you could pull a browser and write Computing, like Computer Science, though. Do list relevant coursework, and people can figure it out. If it's really the 3rd best school in the UK for computer whatnots, people should be familiar with it and understand already.
I've studied at both universities, and would very much recommend Birmingham over Imperial.
The latter felt a lot more isolating and stressful. Partly because of having to live in London, with its expensive housing that will be far away from the main campus in South Kensington when you move out of student accommodation. Partly because the students there are perpetually stressed overworkers with terrible study-life balance. Partly because Imperial focuses only on science and technology courses, so attracts mostly a certain type of person that I personally would rather not be stuck in such a tedious monoculture with. And partly because of the gender imbalance which is also due to this, it felt exceptionally weird to be in a university that's so male-dominated.
If Birmingham offers what you want, I would choose that for all the opposite reasons of what I wrote above. It has a beautiful campus too, lots of open green space and lovely redbrick architecture.
Also don't worry about the exact name of your degree. Employers won't care.
The latter felt a lot more isolating and stressful. Partly because of having to live in London, with its expensive housing that will be far away from the main campus in South Kensington when you move out of student accommodation. Partly because the students there are perpetually stressed overworkers with terrible study-life balance. Partly because Imperial focuses only on science and technology courses, so attracts mostly a certain type of person that I personally would rather not be stuck in such a tedious monoculture with. And partly because of the gender imbalance which is also due to this, it felt exceptionally weird to be in a university that's so male-dominated.
If Birmingham offers what you want, I would choose that for all the opposite reasons of what I wrote above. It has a beautiful campus too, lots of open green space and lovely redbrick architecture.
Also don't worry about the exact name of your degree. Employers won't care.
Thank you for this insight, I really appreciate it! I'm currently leaning towards London because I feel like I need as big a city as I can get (and the more metropolitan/open-minded outlook that tends to come from people that live in them), but what you describe definitely sounds like hell and what I want to avoid. There are a lot of unis in London, but the challenge seems to be finding the right combination of good course content and the close-knit university vibe that you would typically get on campus unis like B'bham. I don't know how many of the London unis are actually campus unis, but I have heard they're few and far between.
Fun fact: in French-speaking countries, it's "Informatique". I think that it's "Informatik" in German. The name does not have "computer" in it and is more about "information".
> which tbh sounds closer to something in IT support and seems highly likely to be understood as such by most clients/employers
This is an assumption that you're making, and it isn't true.
> is there anything to stop me from calling it Computer Science on my CV?
Use the actual name of the course, don't make stuff up. Also, Imperial isn't a sole exception, a few of the Scottish universities use "computing" too.
This is an assumption that you're making, and it isn't true.
> is there anything to stop me from calling it Computer Science on my CV?
Use the actual name of the course, don't make stuff up. Also, Imperial isn't a sole exception, a few of the Scottish universities use "computing" too.
You appear to be right, I always assumed there was a dedicated degree for that and that it had similar names to Computing, but searching for "Computing" on UCAS does seem to suggest it's more common than I thought for true Computer Science degrees. I still think Computer Science sounds much cooler, but it doesn't seem to be the dealbreaker I thought it would be.
I would call it as your piece of paper, and include a link to the university in the cv so it is easy to investigate if anyone is confused. Maybe you can include the top 3 link too.
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No one’s going to think you got a degree in IT Support. In my experience, employers don’t care about the specific name of your degree. As long as it included a good amount of computer science-related modules.