Advice for visiting students taking Part IB CST

Preparation

Students proposing to spend a year at Cambridge will find following Cambridge material relevant:

• Read the syllabus for Part IA (the first year) of the Computer Science Tripos.
• Look at some recent examination papers on the material.
  Papers 1 & 2 are taken by first-year students; incoming students should be able to answer the questions on Digital Electronics, Discrete Mathematics I & II, Operating Systems, Algorithms, Probability Object-oriented Programming with Java, and Regular Languages & Finite Automata. It should also be possible to understand the questions on Foundations of Computer Science even if the syntax of ML is unclear.
  Papers 3, 4, 5 & 6 are taken by second-year students; it would be interesting to know if any of the questions look too obvious.
• Work through the self-service Java course taken by first-year students at Cambridge.
• Complete Workbook 0 for the Further Java course before arriving in October.

The course Web pages change for the new year over the Summer, so it may be necessary to check the material for a previous year if no details are available for the current year.

The Cambridge course

Typically, visiting students take the whole of Part IB (the second year) of the Computer Science Tripos. Some of the material may already be familiar, in which case students can skip the lectures but they will still have to take the full set of four examinations at the end of the year. Some questions will just be easier than others. All students undertake assessed practical work including a group project in the Lent (Spring) Term.

For details, see:

• The timetable for the whole year.
• The structure of the examinations at the end of the year.
• The schedule of practical work for assessment.

It is also possible to take courses other than the simple second-year Part IB Tripos. In particular, it might be possible to take some Part II (third year) courses in place of any Part IB courses being skipped.

Students who are particularly well organised and energetic can take a foreign language course in the Department of Engineering at Cambridge. However, the work load is considerable. It is not sensible to study a second subject while taking the Computer Science Tripos at Cambridge.

Small group teaching in Cambridge is given at supervisions. Each college has a Director of Studies who will explain the details.

Colleges

Information about individual colleges can be found through their Web sites. Their locations are shown on the University's on-line map of Cambridge. The Department of Computer Science and Technology is shown by the red pin on the University map or the marker on Google maps.