David Rooney
MSc in Advanced Computing student Graduate

David Rooney did his undergraduate degree in MMU's School of Computing, Mathematics and Digital Technology, and stayed on to do an MSc. He was offered a job before he'd finished the MSc, and took advantage of the course's flexibility to combine work and study:

"My story begins with my interests. I had no idea what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I liked computing, but not just one area. I liked it all, and that’s where MMU fitted perfectly for me.

After looking at a number of universities, I finally found a course that covered it all whilst also focusing on the areas that count, the areas used in industry. Not only that, but it was right in the heart of Manchester. And now after five years, I know it was the right place to be.

The course I chose was BSc (Hons) Applied Computing. At the end of the course I achieved a 2:1 but felt that if I wanted a really good job in computing I needed more. And luckily MMU was there to offer me a place on their MSc Advanced Computing course. This course expanded my knowledge more, and even before it was finished I had several interviews lined up and firms competing to have me. One of these was HP, for a graduate post based in London.

But I chose to stay in Manchester and I now work as a Developer for a company called Unicom. I am part of a team of eight people (two of whom are also MMU computing graduates) and I am continuing to learn more every day (and it pays well too).

Currently I am finishing off my MSc Project, having switched to being a part-time student - which means I can get help from my work colleagues and also my lecturers.

Thanks, MMU."

Yvonne Schofield
MSc in Computing Graduate

I am a 29-year-old Astrophysics graduate from Manchester. After graduating from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1999, I worked in the labs at a pharmaceutical company, while I considered exactly what direction I wanted my career to take. In 2003 I went part time in the labs and started the MSc Computing course as a part time student. The first two years comprised of lectures, assignments and exams, with the third year taken up by a project. Having enquired about the options for an industrial based project, individuals at the company where I work, allowed me to unofficially participate in a project that was emerging.

The aim of the company’s project was to migrate data from three existing systems to a new solution. Using the industrial project as a base, I outlined an MSc project entitled ‘Data Migration in a Regulated Environment’, which involved background research into data migration and the construction of a simulation of the company’s migration. This required in-depth analysis of the systems involved, in order to create simulators of the data sources and understand the data requirements for the migration. A new target database was also designed and constructed. Finally, software was written that would perform the data extraction, cleaning, transformation and uploading to the new system. This was a very challenging undertaking, as it involved learning and applying several new technologies and skills in a short space of time and overcoming a continuous series of technical difficulties.

The work that I did for the MSc involved analysis of the company’s systems and writing software that was designed for use on those systems. The company’s project was running behind my MSc project, so they had yet to acquire any data transformation software. The MSc required that an independent reviewer evaluate my software. After demonstrating my software to an appropriate volunteer, in this case an IT project manager working on the company’s migration project, I was officially seconded onto the company’s project team.

Karen Pudner
MSc in Computing Graduate

In 1991 I graduated from Manchester University with a BA (Hons) 2:1 in English Language and Literature. Since graduating, I have been employed in the fields of housing and advice work. After completing some short courses in Java and C++, I decided that I wanted a change of career, and began the MSc in Computing in September 2004.

The MSc helped me to develop my skills in Java, and also gave me an overview of other computing areas which I had no knowledge of previously, such as database development and neural networks.

As part of the MSc I completed a research project which involved using a conversational agent and expert system as a natural language interface to a database. I will be submitting a paper to a conference, based on this project, and I hope to do more research in the area of artificial intelligence in the future