But yeah, we do a lot of hackathons and things and organise events.
So some of the things like Three Thing game
like you say, which is a Hull only initiative,
take part in international competitions,
hackathons and things that we support.
Our campus is quite
is all packed in very close together and a lot of the, because me and Awen
both lived in The Courtyard in our first year and it's it was a really nice place wasn’t it?
It’s lovely. Lived there for two years.
I think as well it's just
how homey it feels, which seems like a really silly thing.
It's not something you can measure,
but when I came to Hull, I didn't go on an Open Day.
I came on, like, a Campus Tour.
So it was just,
I think, probably a computer science ambassador who walked me around
honestly. Scary. Can't remember who they were, oops!
But it was that
kind of gut feeling like, yes, I could see myself here.
You know, I saw the computer labs that
I would be working in.
I was thinking, yeah I could see myself here for eight hours a day.
Not that we’re made to do eight hours a day, but, you know, during crunch time,
when you really got to get that stuff done, you should.
Should never have crunch time.
But being able to see yourself somewhere
and feeling comfortable there is an important thing.
When I came a long time ago, it was the surrounding.
You know, you come to the university and it was actually a beautiful kind of,
it's a beautiful campus.
With some of those views you get from the seventh floor, the library as well.
Oh my, that's my favourite place.
You’re just looking over,
you can actually see the Humber Bridge.
The campus is by far one of the best.
I came here and I just fell in love with it straightaway.
I was just like, this is the place.
Spoke to a few people.
Open Days were massively important for me.
Just talking to the lecturers, knowing that you can...
these are people you can trust.
That have got your interests at heart and that was 20 years ago.
And for you guys to be saying that now, it's good to see that still here.
So well done.
I think that was important when I was choosing universities
as well, because I grew up in a smallish town,
so going to universities in big bustling cities, having to get like busses
to get to the campus and then being like,
I'm on the wrong part of the campus, I need to go over here.
And then obviously seeing like much smaller... one of the universities
I looked at was Aberystwyth, which is like more of a seaside-y town almost.
But I think one thing that's really special about Hull is it's...
the centre is bustling and it's busy, but it's such a low density city
that I could just cycle everywhere and still find a quiet café,
or just go to a really busy pub if I wanted to.
And I think
the communities that build as well, you don't just hang out on the campus.
It's like, oh, let's go to like, the People's Republic, let's go down Newland.
I think having those streets and those places
so close to the university as well, it almost feels like they are
part of the campus, it starts to like reach out and take more in.
It's like a village, isn't it?
Yeah, it's like a student village.
It's one of the things about
the Open Days.
Also, the students who do come visit and see because you'll be living in this place
for three or four years and likely beyond, like you were saying before Tim
many people stay in the city they go to study at,
so they go and experience this place.
You're going to be studying there, working there, living there
and I think one of the things we do with Computer
Science is try and provide opportunities for people to meet
people and work together.
So we have quite a lot of teamwork, we have activities, some are
required things, some are optional.
And again, that is to encourage students to start mixing, meeting people,
finding friendship groups, some within the course, some outside the course,
because that's going to be
what helps them live for three or four years and beyond.
And it's really setting the direction for how they're going to live their lives
beyond that. We try and give them lots of space and opportunity.
You mentioned challenges as well. There’s also things like Three Thing Game which is exclusive to University of Hull
which brings in different members of
industry to rate games that are made within 24 hours.
Yeah well it's a limited time, we looked at 48 hours to allow a bit more time.
They force us to sleep now,
you can’t just sleep over.
I thought they were locked in, like you cannot leave.
But yeah, we do a lot of hackathons and things and organise events
so some of the things like Three Thing Game like you say, which is a Hull only initiative,
taking part in international competitions, hackathons and things that we support.
So students again that want to go beyond the core of the course can do,
particularly to have that chance to socialise, to meet,
to drink coke, eat pizza, solve computing problems, have fun.
Even after that, you know,
the C4Di, there’s lots of networking.
So once you've finished university,
there's actually, yes, you've still got the networking events that happen.
There's lots that happens in the city.
There’s Code Base where
we all meet up and just talk about and just share knowledge.
I don't know if that's
a thing that you're aware of, but there's lots more out there.
Yeah, I know about a couple of them.
And I think the city itself is,
as you know yourself as an employer, is just the digital sector is growing so much
in Hull,
and there's so much demand for,
for graduates, so you know,
people who do want to stay in the city, there's plenty of opportunity.
And we have students down, you know, at the new tech campus in Hull
who've gone down for internships in the summer.
And, you know, just giving them
the opportunity to then work in the company post-graduation.
We can organise networking events for students.
So it's mentioned earlier, our Student Futures,
which is our student careers service, are really good organising things.
It's also important to know that it's for life.
So after you finish uni, you still get access to it.
Yeah, and on top of that we do bespoke things in computer science.
So usually around March time, again for
Awen and Ethan,
in March we’re running a networking event with local employers, ones
who want to offer internships and places. Tim has been before.
So we'll see him there again for the opportunity
to practice chatting to employers, see what they want,
potentially get internship offers and a chance to do,
do things that help you see beyond the horizon of your degree.
Yeah, we always say that the key thing right now for the current students, Anthony,
even now is do study and work, get a good degree that’ll set you up,
but alongside that, make your friendship groups, make your networks, meet people
like Tim and Megan, they’re gonna help you get jobs in the future.
Yeah, that's helped us be really successful at our graduate
employability and John has more recent data on that.
But we said we're good at
students going on to get jobs that require
having a degree and that are technical and our students go on to become, well,
Managing Directors of companies, Developers in companies,
whole range of technical roles and beyond.
As a computer science department, we are above other computer
science departments,
so it's like national benchmarking in terms of our graduate employability.
And that really comes from how we work with employees throughout the whole degree
and how we do have this balance
between theory and practice really for our courses.
It's actually quite cheap to live in Hull.
I mean, this is massive.
It's the big thing we've all missed so far isn't it? Hull is a very cheap place to live.
So if you are on a budget, you can have a great university,
great surroundings and
actually it will be cheaper than probably if I was to guess, 90% of the country.
I’m from Yorkshire, it’s around the same cheapness but I've got friends from London
and they're like, "woah, what?"
You’re not getting a value degree,
you’re getting a great degree
and you're getting a good price. Cheap pint.
People spending their student finance on accommodation, where in Hull
you can save like half or like one third of your student finance.
That's one of the main reasons I also chose Hull because it's a cheap city.
And for computer science you get a chance to get jobs easy.
And one intriguing and fascinating thing I find about Student Futures
is most employers are students from Hull.
They want
to create the systems and they are coming for student from Hull.
They want to build a community of students from Hull.
So it's an interesting thing that the lecturers and the uni is doing
and I applaud them for that.
I think there's an interesting blend in Hull between,
you're saying the cheapness of the accommodation as well,
but also the rich communities of... I was prepared that like,
okay, I learn computer science and I have to go to London and work
two jobs to afford a cupboard that I can live out of.
But it was actually like going to those communities, like the company I work for
was pretty much built by
Lewis walked into freeside and was like, you guys, got a crazy idea.
Come with me.
Like anybody who wants a job right now, I've got an idea.
And that's that's how it started.
He just grabbed that community and went.
And me personally, I also wouldn't work there
if I hadn't have done the Game Jams. The team I met there,
I still
those people are my colleagues now,
I work with them on a day to day basis because we ended up in the same company
and that about Hull is what keeps you here, I think, because it's
just like, it gives you the time to breathe and learn at your own pace.
You can build up these communities and friendships,
then you just don't want to let them go anymore.
So you mentioned about, like, employers in Hull, we've got VISR on campus itself
and they basically invited quite a lot of computer scientists
down to their headquarters just to demonstrate what they do,
because they're an augmented reality,
a visual reality, virtual reality company.
But it was really interesting to see
what they were doing.
And they did, I believe, offer a job to someone who attended that day.
Yeah, absolutely.
Most of the company is Hull University graduates, from the founders
to the newest people employed,
I think Corona stopped it quite a lot because we can't do open events anymore.
But the one we did recently, it was so refreshing
and so nice to get students back in and actually talk to people.