Computer Science at the University of Sydney

By Chetanya Bansal

The University of Sydney, founded in 1850, is one of the leading universities in Australia and is frequently listed among the top 50 universities in the world. It has approximately 40,000 undergraduate and 33,000 postgraduate students.

Introduction: About You and Your Program:

Hello, My name is Chetanya Bansal and I am studying at The University of Sydney for a Bachelor of Science Degree with a major in Computer Science. In addition, I am pursuing a second major in Software Development. It is a four-year double major program with the option of doing honours in the fourth year or leaving early in the third year.

Application/Admission Process in Australia:

Each state in Australia has its own application portal for applying to university. For the University of Sydney, I applied through UAC, which is the application portal for New South Wales (New South Wales - one of the states in Australia).

There is one application that is sent to all of the various universities. As part of the application process, you will also have to rank all these programs. (Starting from your 1st option to your last option). Sadly, there is a maximum number of programs you can apply to.

The admission process for my program at the University of Sydney was solely academic (different from many universities in the US and Canada). The selection was solely made with my grade 12 marks. Nevertheless, extra circulars could be redeemed for scholarships and some programs will expect you to submit a portfolio of work you have done.

Why the interest in studying Computer Science:

As a child, I was always interested in Mathematics and wanted to pursue a quantitative degree. I also wanted a degree that would open up various job prospects, so I chose to study Computer Science.

Computer Science offered greater flexibility and the opportunity to study courses from a wider domain. It also gave a greater range of research projects available to be done in the 4th year at University of Sydney.

Likes and Dislikes of studying Computer Science at the University of Sydney:

Likes

• Good mix of theoretical and applied components of Computer Science.

• Helpful professors, making the courses interesting.

• There are numerous electives available.

• Approval to attend postgraduate courses in the 4th year.

Dislikes

• Assignments are terribly time consuming.

• Expectation of learning some components of the assignments by ourselves.

Tips: For incoming/interested students in the field of Computer Science:

I would advise anyone who wants to study Computer Science to study a programming language before they start university and start creating projects. Debugging programming assignments can be incredibly difficult if you do not have experience. Most introductory programming courses have quite high expectations. My introductory computing course had large assignments and I struggled to complete them as I had never done something like this before.

Try to manage your time sufficiently as well, because you never know how long an assignment will take. When there are a lot of tasks and projects to accomplish, it can be difficult to complete them all on time as there can be a component of learning part of the material on your own. As a result, correctly managing your time can help you and your projects be efficient.

• Make a “To-Do” List

• Prioritising important tasks

• Set reminders to help set a routine

Interviewed and transcribed by Yutika Garg

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