Dr Michael O'Neill (Director - Natural Computing Research & Applications Group, UCD School of Computer Science & Informatics) has successfully won a funding award from Google for the fourth consecutive year to support an innovative outreach module for second level students.
The Introduction to Computer Science & Programming (ICSP) module informs them about what the exciting discipline of computer science is all about, and the broad range of career opportunities it offers.
It is a full university module and students participate through hands-on practical sessions held in the UCD School of Computer Science & Informatics Summer School. After successful completion, students earn five UCD credits, which can be cashed in if they study for a degree in computer science at UCD.
Dr O’Neill said: “This is the first module of its kind in Ireland, and was developed specifically to address the fact that second level education has no curriculum in ICT. As such students at this level find it difficult to understand what it means to study computer science and the types of careers that are possible. As a consequence of annual activities such as the ICSP module and the Summer School, which have been enabled through the continued financial support of Google, we have achieved a 97% increase in CAO first preferences for UCD Computer Science in 2011.”
ICSP is sponsored by Google through their CS4HS (Computer Science for High School) initiative. In the academic year 2010/11 ICSP will be offered as part of the UCD Computer Science Summer School.
