You're there to study, remember

Advantages: Learn lots, in two useful disciplines, good facilities, some great lecturers
Disadvantages: Some not so great lecturers, not much help with placements, VIVA assessment and moved exams!

...institution, I think it’s important to slip in some of the more important details into this op first. The University of Birmingham, which celebrated it’s centenary in the year 2000, is a very well established university, with a certain amount of prestige attached to it’s work. Established in 1900, it has specified more explicitly in the main science and engineering disciplines, but in recent year has branched into more diverse fields such as humanities and law. Based in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, barely a few miles from the city centre, the University is in prime position, with everything on campus, and even it’s own train station on the Lichfield Trent Valley/Redditch line. - The School of Computer Science Or simply CS as some of us more affectionately call it. The School has been around for quite some...

Excelle 15.08.2001 · Read review
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Review of Computer Science & Software Engineering

Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends

Advantages: Great stories, good engines, educational experience
Disadvantages: The new stories aren't as good

...I am now 17 years old, but I do still love watching the odd Thomas The Tank Engine story very ocassionly. I grew up watching it and I had, and still do have, most of the videos and story books. I was pleased to discover that the programmes and concept is still going strong. They are continuing to make new stories and introduce more characters, both of which have some positive and negative costs. I will write everything that I know about Thomas The Tank Engine and try and gives those of you who haven't seen it before, a good idea of what it all involves. Thomas The Tank Engine (and Friends), is a childrens programme about the trains that operate on the island of Sodor. It follows them through their ups and downs and also their funny moods and strops that they get into. Each story tends to have a message at the end of it and it...

thespurs 06.10.2004 · Read review
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Review of Thomas the Tank Engine

Weird science

Advantages: some good humour and entertainment
Disadvantages: lame in parts

...Director: John Hughes Producer: Joel Silver Writer: John Hughes Stars: Kelly LeBrock, Anthony Michael Hall, Ian Mitchel-Smith and Bill Paxton Released in 1985 this hour and a half teen flick show how two nerdy American kids use a computer to change their love lives for ever?. **BRIEF PLOT** When Gary Wallace, (played by Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt Donnelly, (played by Ilan Mitchel-Smith) are two geaky kids who struggle to meet girls at their school, so they come up with an idea to create a 'virtual' woman using the computers in their bedroom?. After imputting a lot of data they soon realise than their computers are not very powerful and they need help from higher sources, so hacking into the US Government computers gives them the extra kick their project needs?. Things go wrong when a freak lightening strike hits...

blissman70 04.09.2008 · Read review
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Review of Weird Science (DVD)

Lifting the lid on bad science in the media

Advantages: Fascinating insight into media manipulation and disinformation
Disadvantages: Hard to read at times

...INTRODUCTION Ms Larsbaby pointed me in the direction of this book which a friend of hers had read. The point of the book seemed to be to debunk myths around science and in particular the "pseudo-science" peddled by groups as diverse as nutritionists and journalists. Famous health stories would be examined in detail and taken apart where appropriate. My interest piqued, I had a look to see what all the fuss was about. BRAIN GYMS, HOMEOPATHY AND NUTRITION The author's targets in the book for peddlers of bad science are many and varied. He highlights some well known cases to highlight his point, though is at pains to point out that many other people are just as bad. The book examines the Brain Gym initiative, promoted in schools as a way to improve children's results, but what is it actually based on? The findings...

larsbaby 03.12.2009 · Read review
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Review of Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

It's tough in Computer Science

Advantages: Good job prospects
Disadvantages: It's tough!

...This is from another female computer science student. I came as a mature student, so was more willing to stand up formyself. The ratio here is 1 female : 10 males. I was perhaps fortunate that in being a bit older I certainly wasn't hit on, and in general wasn't given any sexist comments. It was noticible, though, that if you had to go to see a lecturer about something that it was always "Oh..isn't it very hot in here..I'll just prop that door open" They should be so lucky! All that changed, though starting the PhD. I started going out with one of the lecturers and my supervisor refused to have anything to do with me so I had to change supervisors. One other lecturer repeatedly let go of doors in my face - literally - and even kept it up for years after I married. I do love the research but I know I have virtually no chance...

nikir 03.12.2002 · Read review
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Review of Computer Science

Two years down, one to go

Advantages: The third year is all optional modules, so should be more fun
Disadvantages: Lecture rooms uncomfortable, some lecturers are dodgy, some of the compulsary modules are murder

...I've spent since September 1998 (but for the odd 4 month summer break, and the like) at Birmingham University on their Computer Science and Software Engineering BSc course. I came here because it seemed like a pretty swinging joint, and my parents both enjoyed it back in the olden days of their youth. I chose the course because, well, computers... that's where the money is these days. <br> The important thing to note about this course is that you may not actually realise what it involves. There seemed to me to be an awful lot of maths in the first two years, and lots of rot about team management skills and project lifecycles. I've forgotten the majority of this stuff already, but I remember the agony of all the brain-melting, backside-numnbing lectures perfectly. <br> The quality of lectures is hugely variable. Many of the lecturers...

Danieru 28.07.2000 · Read review
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Review of Computer Science & Software Engineering

Once upon a time, in Liverpool...

Advantages: An excellent museum dedicated to the Fab Four, suitable for all age groups
Disadvantages: Some of the headsets are a bit dodgy (it was just mine) and some displays not working

...This time during the month of Beatlemania, instead of just writing about the bands albums, films and death theories, I wanted to write about some of the ways in which Liverpool still celebrate the lives of their favourite sons (beside the football players!). Although Ringo made a few disparaging comments towards his hometown a year or two ago, the phrase ?everyone has to start somewhere? springs to mind and ? although I may be a little bias ? I would have to say that Liverpool is very much the land of opportunity compared to where I live! Right at the heart of the city is Albert Dock, a place now surrounded by various shops, museums and even a hotel with the Echo Arena mere feet away. When I was very little, perhaps six, I remember Mummy and Daddy, as they were affectionately called back then, taking my Brother and I right near...

MizzMolko 07.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Beatles Story, Liverpool

The London Science Museum

Advantages: Its free entry and your chilren learn as they play
Disadvantages: A nightmare to get to, very busy at peak times

...coordinated polo shirts on the exhibit they are working at. They have the exhibit name on the back of the shirt and London Science Museum on the front in small lettering. ~~~ What to Expect on each floor ~~~ Basement: Cafeteria, The Launch Pad, The Garden, The Secret Life Of the Home, The Picnic Terrace. Ground Floor: Deep Blue café, Energy hall, Imax 3D cinema, The Modern World, Simulator Ride, Space, The Bridge and Talking Points. First Floor: Agriculture, Materials, Megabite, Pixar - 20 years of animation, Telecommunications, Weather and Time Measurement. There are no food and drink facilities on this floor. Second Floor: Computing, Docks and Diving, Energy, Inside the Spitfire, Ships and Marine Engineering. There is no cafeteria on this floor. Third Floor: Flight, Flight café area, Health matters, In future...

mrsmopples 21.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of Science Museum (London)

The tale of a steam engine called Ivor

Advantages: Good fun to watch
Disadvantages: None

...Once upon a time about 50 years ago and then again about 40 years ago in a land not so very far away from here called Wales, there lived a little green steam engine called Ivor. Ivor the Engine worked out of Llaniog railway station. Ivor could sometimes be a naughty little engine because he had a mind of his own. His favourite hobbies are singing with the local choir, making tea and visiting the seaside. Ivor has lots of friends where he lives, including Dai the Station master, Owen the signal man, Evan Evans the Choir master, Mrs Porty, a rather eccentric lady who loves buying new hats, Mr Dinwiddy, who describes himself as an amateur scientist, lives in the hills where he digs for gold and is always losing his boots but Ivor's bestest friend in the whole wide world is Edwin Jones, Ivor's driver. Ivor also loves animals and has...

paulpry118 09.02.2009 · Read review
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Review of Ivor The Engine - The Complete Ivor The Engine (DVD)

Not Weird Science - Bad Science

Advantages: debunking some of medicine's myths & misinformations, funny read
Disadvantages: man on a mission and with an agenda but who can blame him

...Ben Goldacre is the very outspoken mouthpiece against really rubbish claims made by modern medicine or television charlatans. He is a medical doctor and journalist with a column in the Guardian newspaper with an uncanny bullsh*t detector second to none. I can?t remember when I first came across his ways of thinking but it must have been when I was looking for an answer to Gillian McKeith, a woman that makes my neck hair stand on end, someone I find appalling to the n-th degree. Lately I have seen him voice his opinion on London?s 6 o?clock news regarding LBC?s Jenni Barnett and her rather stupid musings on the MMR back in January and the other week on Watchdog when he was asked what he thought about some modern detox products. I bought the ?Bad Science? paperback when I was ordering a number of books from Amazon quite a few months back...

Tempus_Fugit 13.04.2009 · Read review
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Review of Bad Science - Ben Goldacre