BSc Computer Science: 'What I've enjoyed about my course'

Louie Waterfall graduated this summer with a BSc Computer Science. In his final year, Louie's game 3D Procedural Cave Generation was awarded 2nd place in the Game Technology category at the Game Republic Student Showcase. Here, he shares highlights of taking part in the student showcase, what he enjoyed about his course and how it has prepared him for his career.

What I’ve enjoyed my course:

During my course I have loved learning about a subject that I love, doing programming tasks and learning how to solve problems with amazing support by lecturers and demonstrators during lab work. Additionally, working in a team on group projects as part of coursework has helped me learn how to communicate and work with others, along with working on fun projects and creating awesome software together.

Lectures are always made fun by lecturers; they try to involve students and make learning practical with solving code during the lecture as well as walking through the code step by step. There are many extracurricular activities that the university offers with the course. These include game jams, programming challenges and more. I have gone to a few of these and enjoyed meeting new people and working on projects. Finally, there are multiple societies linked to the course which are great to be a part of.

My course has prepared me for my career by:

Looking for a career in games development is tough, but my course really helped me get prepared for it. The course teaches many applicable skills that are sought after by employers, the extra curricular activities are also great to put on your CV and for employers to see. Alongside the course there are extra lectures each week that include guest speakers from many companies and areas of work. Quite a few of these were game development related, these lectures were great at preparing me for my interviews and my CV.

As well as this, there are modules setup to help with professional development, these taught me how to create a good CV and what employers want to see, my personal supervisor looked over my CV and my development goals, giving me helpful feedback that aided my development. There are many services available while studying at the uni to help with finding a job.

The highlights of taking part in the Game Republic Student Showcase were:

The games showcase was an amazing experience which allowed me to show off the hard work I put into my honors project, I got to hear from professionals and get feedback on my project. We also got to meet many other students from various universities and see the amazing projects they worked on. It was a very social atmosphere and very welcoming, I enjoyed sharing ideas and my project with other students. It also offered networking opportunities, many of the other students were going in to the same career so it was great to talk with them, and, professionals from game studios were there to network with as well.

Getting an award for my project was really cool, it made me happy to see people thought my project was impressive and it gave me a great achievement to show employers on my CV. Overall it was a great experience and I would recommend anyone going into games development to search for extra curricular activities like this.

I enjoyed studying in Hull because:

I have enjoyed my time studying at the University of Hull because it has helped me further my knowledge and experience in the field I love. My course has been extremely interesting to me and very enjoyable, lectures are engaging most of the time, lab work is very interactive and supported by lecturers.

I have enjoyed being a part of the University and getting to join various societies and meet new people. Everyone has been very friendly and engaging. The University offers many activities alongside societies. I enjoyed taking part in a few of these when I first came to uni, it was a great way to make friends and I loved it. I lived in halls for 2 years and both of those years were amazing, the halls are very well built and have friendly maintenance staff on hand.

What's next: 
I will start my job as a games programmer at Climax Studios in September.

Read more:
Read more about Louie's portfolio here.