Hockerill Computer Science Alumni

What did you like most about studying Computer Science?

Learning about algorithms and data structures. Solving problems and writing your own programming code using these concepts

What did you go on to study or do after leaving Hockerill?

Mathematics and Computer Science

What attracted you into a Computer Science profession?

I always liked the idea that you can easily write code that actually does something (hopefully useful). I was also always interested in AI

What helped you getting to where you are now?

I initially started studying Computing at Imperial College. I switched to Mathematics & Computer Science at Imperial because I wanted to learn more maths, which I knew was relevant for machine learning. Actually, IB CS helped me get ahead of everyone else for the first few months of undergrad, as CS is technically not a requirement for the course entry. Having the knowledge from IB CS was useful because when I switched the course, I had to catch up a lot on maths. They teach you a lot in one month! Two years of IB CS is probably equivalent to a 2-3 modules from the first semester at Imperial. I then went on to get my PhD in Machine Learning.

What advice would you give to students interested in Computer Science?

Focus on problem solving. Work on coding interview questions, challenges and competitions. Participate in Hackathon. Keep trying various new things even if they are not relevant to your primary interest. For example, work on websites, both frontend UI's and backend servers. Make the code available on Github. These will look very good on your CV. If you are interested in machine learning, make sure you get as much exposure to maths.