Why study Honours?

If you are a typical student majoring in Computer Science at third year, then doing an Honours year doubles the amount of computer science that you have studied! Honours is a year of intensive study and project work in the School of Computer Science: you have accommodation within the School, state of the art computing facilities in your lab and you work closely with staff members. As well as learning about computing, you learn about exchanging ideas with other people who are trained in your field and you get to try out your ideas in your project - a major computing exercise that runs for the whole of your academic year. You also get to tell the School about your work at the end of the year when you present a poster on the topic of your expertise. So you also learn about communication. It's an exciting time when you can really stretch your abilities, learn from the people around you and find out a lot about yourself.

Honours classes are small - typically 10-30 students - and the subjects taught frequently include material that the lecturers are themselves researching. Needless to say the closer contact between staff and students and the special interest that the staff have in the material they are teaching leads to a stimulating environment.

To get into the Honours program you'll need a Bachelor's degree, with a good major in Computer Science or a Graduate Diploma in Computer Science. If you think you might be interested in Honours you should apply to The Honours Coordinator late in your third year. The Honours program may be started either at the start of the normal academic year (February) or in the mid-year break (July).

Not all of the Honours year is academic work - there are fiercely fought cricket and soccer games, common room discussions with the staff and the other honours students, and the Honours Retreat where honours students and some of the staff get together to collectively review the Honours year and make suggestions about how to improve Honours. There are group discussions and debates, poster sessions, talks - some serious, some hilarious - and some socialising. Click here to find out more about the Retreat and see pictures from previous years.