Welcome to Computer Science Honours
Congratulations on your results and your acceptance into the Honours Programme of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cape Town. You have chosen one of the best Computer Science departments in the country for pursuing your graduate work. The honours course completes your qualification as a computer professional. It is an opportunity to undertake advanced courses given by enthusiastic lecturers on their own area of specialization, as well as to complete a major research and development project. This booklet contains details of the structure of the Honours year (fourth year). The Honours year, in particular, is hard full-time work; we hope that you enjoy the course. The department wishes you every success for the year.
Note Well: As pointed out elsewhere you must be at the University two weeks before the normal start of the (undergraduate) academic year in order to fulfil certain compulsory parts of the honours course.
Professional Qualification
In Computer Science it takes four years to gain a professional qualification. It is only after four years that we sufficiently cover the ACM/IEEE Computer Science Curriculum. It is also only after four years that you will have fulfilled the Requirements of the British Computer Society (BCS) for a professional Computer Science qualification — this only applies to students have also completed their undergraduate studies (BSc) in this department. The Department’s honours course is recognized as providing full Chartered IT Professional (CITP) accreditation as well as partially meeting the education requirement for Chartered Scientist (CSci) registration.
A professional qualification means that you can go into commerce and industry and practice with confidence in the field of Computer Science. It will certainly improve your career prospects locally and is an essential qualification for the global marketplace.
Our students have found employment in local companies such as Amazon.com Development Centre in Cape Town, local games and media companies such as Black Ginger and Wisdom Games and innovative businesses such as Wizzit Bank in Sandton. Our students also work for nVidia, Microsoft and Amazon in the USA.
Graduate Studies
We have built up a stable group of well-qualified researchers in this department and we believe we have brought together some of the best people in this country, with doctorates and experience from some of the world's leading Computer Science institutes.
A key aspect of the programme is to enable you to function both independently and in teams. By the end of the course you are able to read relevant literature and formulate research and development proposals. You will gain practical experience in team work by initiating and managing a major project. Emphasis is placed on the effective communication of ideas and results.
There is a significant, but subtle, difference between studies for an undergraduate and a graduate degree. It is assumed that if you register for the course, it is because you have an interest in your studies in general and Computer Science in particular.
As a graduate student, you are expected to:
- Be responsible for identifying much of your study material yourself and managing your own study programme
- Work largely unsupervised and independently
- Display evidence of independent and original thought
- Be prepared to evaluate, criticise and justify
- Show an appreciation of concepts and principles
- Communicate ideas clearly and succinctly
- Learn together with staff members
Role of the Department
In general the role of the Department is to:
- Produce graduates with knowledge and skills relevant to both the International and the South African Information Technology community
- Carry out innovative research which adds to basic understanding
- Produce service courses and provide research assistance in the fields of science and engineering
- Provide services to Industry through technology transfer and applied research
- Take an active part in the academic and governance affairs of the University
- To provide opportunities and support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to realise their potential
- To promote, support and advise schools in the teaching of Computer Science Technology
In our graduate programme our role is more specifically to produce individuals who are well read, articulate, and able to exercise critical judgement in the field of Information Technology. Its core function, therefore, is not that of providing vocational training, but to impart the fundamental skills that are needed whenever decision making or creative thinking takes place. These skills have to be nurtured in the special environment of the university, where orthodoxies can be challenged and ideas can be developed.
We therefore educate our students in the principles, theory and practice of Computer Science. We do not aim to train people how to use computers and become programmers, although you will learn those things as a matter of course. We want our students still to be useful scientists a decade from now, rather than be trained for the immediate demands of the marketplace.
Further Study
Students who successfully complete honours will be eligible to proceed to an MSc in Computer Science by dissertation provided they can find an approved supervisor for their intended course of study and research.
Programme Coordinator
The honours programme coordinator is Dr. Anne Kayem, Room 307, Computer Science Building (email: akayem@cs.uct.ac.za). There will also be class representatives to whom issues may be addressed. Apart from the issues mentioned above which must be resolved in consultation with the programme coordinator, any queries regarding the programme should first be addressed to the departmental administrative assistant; if the matter needs to be brought to the attention of the programme coordinator, she will do so.
Financial Assistance
Financial assistance is available for prospective Honours students. Please look at the University’s Postgraduate Degree Funding web page or email pgfunding@uct.ac.za. The South African National Research Foundation (NRF) provides a limited number of bursaries to South African citizens. The closing date for NRF bursaries is usually around the 30 September; the notification date is February of the next year. The University offers UCT Council Honours Merit Scholarships for students who achieve at least 65% in their undergraduate majors. A number of other bursaries are also available. You are advised to apply for all bursaries as early as possible.
Bursaries for Computer Science Honours at UCT are generally available from the department's Advisory Board members and other companies. Please apply to the head of the department for these.
In addition to these bursaries, some members of the department have funds available for research purposes, which may be available to students involved in projects undertaken by these members of staff. Students with legitimate financial difficulties may also receive departmental support. Any queries in this regard should be addressed to the programme coordinator.
Facilities
Honours students are accommodated in a dedicated laboratory with 24-hour access, a small kitchen and coffee area, lockers and workstations. Our stated machine policy is to have at least two machines for every three students: in practice every student has in recent years had access to their own machine.
Computing resources include servers and workstations running BSD, Ubuntu Linux and other Linux distributions, Microsoft: Windows XP Professional, Windows 2003 Enterprise Server Edition.
Software resources for teaching and development are drawn from Public Domain offerings, third party releases (e.g. IBM Rational Suite) and the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance software program.
For experiments in parallel computing we have an Apple cluster, comprising 9 quad-core Xeon Xserve machines as well as a 40 PC private enterprise cloud (based on the latest Ubuntu 9.10 w/Eucalyptus).
Access to the Centre for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) for use of their specialised cluster CPU cluster and GPU cluster computers when taking the specialised modules.
Computers are connected to 100Mb switched network, whilst servers are connected via 1Gb links. A wireless infrastructure provides connectivity wireless peripherals and notebook computers.