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Starting your master's degree and studying in the School of Computer Science

Preparatory Work

There is no compulsory preparatory work. If you want to do some preliminary study or skills development, then the best use of your time, for any of our MSc programmes, is to develop your programming skills. Ideally, this should be in the Python programming language.  

If you are entirely new to coding, a course such as the free Codecademy is a good starting point. 

If you are taking the MSc Data Science, it is also useful to revise mathematical topics, particularly statistics and probability: e.g., descriptive statistics, probability distributions, maximum likelihood estimation, hypothesis testing and confidence intervals.  

There are good online tutorials for these topics such as StatQuest.

  

New to computer science?

If you are entirely new to computer science, here is a list of YouTube videos that give non-technical introductions to a range of topics. The computerphile and numberphile You Tube channels also offer good introductions to ideas in computer science and data science, many of them presented by academics here at Nottingham.

Equipment

You will have 24-hour access to our computer labs during your studies, so there is no expectation for you to provide your own computer. 

However, if you are thinking of buying a personal computer for your studies, read our helpful information on things to consider when choosing a machine. 

Buying a computer

The university offers a laptop loan service and other support for students who do not have access to personal devices, many students do and find it useful to have their own device.  

If you do choose to purchase or bring a device with you then please check the minimum specification for Windows PCs here and information about what we provide in the School of Computer Science. 

Any Apple Mac/Macbook will meet the minimum specifications.  

We advise not to purchase Chromebooks, iPads, tablets or similar as they cannot run the apps required on the course.  

More about the School of Computer Science

The School of Computer Science is a community that includes the study of computer science at undergraduate, master's and PhD level as well as cutting-edge research in areas such as artificial intelligence, mixed reality, programming languages, cyber-physical systems, and computer security.  

You can find out more on the school web pages, and follow the school on X (formerly Twitter).