Emeritus Professor and former Head of School Ron Morrison visited us earlier this week to officially open The Morrison Suite.
Pictures
2013 in Computer Science: A Year in Pictures
A Christmas Hog Roast in Computer Science
School merchandise increases in popularity
Good summer weather pays dividends in the School Garden
A round up of research activities, including some of the SACHI group testing out visibility, affordance and feedback for steering mechanisms in Dundee 🙂
An opportunity to celebrate with our students at Graduation
Posters, prizes and competitions throughout the year
Catching up with recent graduates, established alumni and great ambassadors for the School
The Usual Suspects
Breaking away from the CS coffee machine at last. Academics from the School subtly advertise Costa sponsorship deal at November Graduation? Surely not!
We reserve the right to protect the confidentiality of our source.
Tales from the Real World
School President James Anderson and Careers Adviser Ben Carter invited recent graduates Matt Hailey, Ali Scott, Craig Garrigan and Steve Lowson back to the School yesterday to share their experience of working in the real world since graduating, with our final year students.
They have been successful in securing positions at highly regarded companies including Sky Scanner, PlanForCloud, NCR and NCC Group. Talks described career paths, roles and responsibilities, professional development and current employment opportunities.
Find out more about using your Computer Science degree and read student case studies on the careers website. Thanks to all for a great afternoon. Yes, cakes were consumed.
Clockwise from top left:
Steve, Ali and Craig prepare to give their talk.
Matt and Ali reminisce in the coffee area.
James, Craig, Stephen, Ben, Ali and Matt joined our final year students for cake and questions.
BBC Children in Need Bake Sale
Well done to Sarah and Sophie Gent, who have been busy selling delicious home baking in the coffee area. The money raised will go to Children in Need.
The bake sale pictured below is in full swing. Stocks are almost depleted.
Computer Science Supports MacMillan
Another year, another successful Coffee Morning organised by Ishbel Duncan in aid of MacMillan Cancer care.
Friday was the UK’s annual biggest coffee morning in aid of MacMillan Cancer care. Staff and students are pictured sampling the home baking on offer and participating in the Raffle.
Constraint Modelling Winners
At the annual conference on Constraint Programming, CP 2013, Ian Gent and Ian Miguel were members of the winning team in the “First International Lightning Model and Solve” competition. Many thanks to the organisers of the event and especially to Allen van Gelder of UCSC for having the idea of entering a manual team and for inviting us to join in.
This was a quick event – just two hours – and the team’s strategy was to solve problems by hand, using pen and paper. Â This was reflected in their team name, “Mano”.
Ian Gent has written a much longer blog post about the experience, why the team won, and why it is not bad news for constraint programming.
Postgraduate Pizza Fest
Welcome to our new postgraduate taught and research students, some of whom are pictured enjoying a social event before teaching commences on Monday.
Yes, there has been a lot of Pizza consumed in the School this week!
Computer Science Orientation Week 2013
After a welcome talk by Head of School Steve Linton, orientation 2013 is underway in the School. Monday and Tuesday offered various overviews, module talks and academic briefings. Anyone who missed these events will find related material on the School Homepage.
School President James Anderson represented the School at Academic Fayre. Student activity was observed in the honours lab and that’s before the official start of semester. We are particularly pleased to welcome the first intake of Gateway students.
A Gaming afternoon for first year students proved popular on Wednesday with Halo, Fifa and Lego Star Wars in operation. An undergraduate pizza fest followed later in the afternoon with an excellent turn out demonstrating the friendly supportive nature of our returning cohort. It’s great to see them back for another year of hard work.
The student experience is paramount here in the school, so we take this opportunity to thank our recent graduates for the NSS 2013 results, where they rated individual subjects for student satisfaction. St Andrews was number one in the UK for Computer Science. We aim to keep it that way.
PhD Reading Party 2013
The 2013 PhD Reading Party was held last month at the Burn House, just outside Edzell in the North East of Scotland.
It was an opportunity for research students to give a talk in a relaxed atmosphere, about their research interests. It also allowed for some socialising while wandering through the nearby woods and rivers.
Each student gave a 5 minute talk with time for questions and discussions. Additionally, to encourage them to make the presentation of their research industry-friendly, a pitching competition was set up. The top three were: Shantanu Pal, Dean Phoomikiattisak and Shyam Reyal. The whole academic part of the trip was rounded off by a talk by Tom Kelsey on ‘Academic Careers’.
In the free time some went off to explore the nearby forest and salmon rich river while others decided to play football or volleyball, enjoy the quiet surroundings or build the highest Jenga tower at the Burn, so far.
Text and Images courtesy of Ruth Hoffmann, Jamie Carson and Shyam Reyal.