Third year

Welcome to the Third Year in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London. This noticeboard contains relevant information for your needs throughout the year. We hope you will have an enjoyable time and all the very best!

We now run a Twitter feed for the 3rd year - follow us: @DoCThirdYear

Overview

• The third year provides students with less required courses and more selective courses. In addition to that, students have to study one required course from I-Explore.
  
  • Please note: Exams for the I-Explore module can happen outside of DoC timetable, so if you are an MEng student who is on Industrial Placement, you have to make arrangements with your company in order to attend the exam.
• All students (Computing and JMC) are expected to engage in a group project.
• Students in their final year of their BEng are expected to submit an individual project.
• The third year MEng students are expected to take up an Industrial placement during the summer.
• For more details on specific elements of the third year, as well as relevant contacts, please refer to the links on the right.
• All teaching will be mixed-mode in 2021-2022. Please watch out for communication from the lecturers about what the plans for their courses are since some teaching/labs/Q & A will happen on campus while others will be remote.

Exams in DoC

• Final exams for courses taken during a Term would take place in week 11 of that Term.
• Week 10 of both the Autumn and Summer Terms are set aside as a designated 'revision' week.
• Courses that clash in the timetable will have an exam clash so you cannot take courses that have a timetable clash. This only applies to DoC courses. 
  

Coursework Weighting

• Each third-year course has a coursework weighting of 20% with an exam contributing 80%, with the exception of:
  • Robotics (60019) and Introduction to Machine Learning (70050) - have a coursework weighting of 30% and an exam contributing 70%,
  • Communicating Computer Science in Schools (60003) - evaluated through a combination of a oral presentation, written report, host teacher's comments, teaching material and review of the teaching journal (or logbook).

Group Projects

• Group Projects are done through the Autumn Term. The projects are submitted and assessed during Week 1 of the Spring Term, so do make sure you are back on time after your holidays.
• Each project is undertaken by groups of six-seven 3rd year undergraduates, so please ensure that you sort yourselves out into groups as soon as possible at the start of the year.
• Each group is supervised by DoC/Imperial staff.
• Projects are proposed on the Project Portal.
• All students must pass the group project.

Individual Projects

This section pertains only to final year BEng students.

• Individual project proposals are put up on the Project Portal early in October and are allocated towards end October.
• Students are expected to list three projects as their choices - one first choice, one second choice and one third choice. Failure to do so will jeopardise your chances of getting your projects in the first round. Students who put up their own projects don't need to list all the three choices.
• If you choose three projects that are very popular, it's likely that you may not get any during the initial allocation phase and will be asked to make another set of choices.
• The Interim Report is due in the middle of February and it's your responsibility to ensure you meet with your second marker to review your project. Failure to do so will count against the 'Project Management' aspect of your Individual Project.
• Individual Project presentations are held during the last week of the summer term, so please ensure that you stay till the end of the term.

Industrial Placements

This section pertains only to third-year MEng students.

Industrial placements are taken up through the summer after the third year (around 6 months for MEng students, from April - September and 4 months for JMC students, from June - September).

• It is better to start looking early and ensure that you have the placement sorted out as soon as possible.
• An element of the assessment of the Industrial Placement is the final presentation, which takes place in Week 1 of the Autumn Term of the new Academic Year. For the current academic year, the presentations will take place on Thursday and Friday of week 1 in October.
• Information on placements can be found here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/computing/industry/placements/. To contact the placement team, please email doc-industrial-liaison@imperial.ac.uk

Progression

You must pass all modules (pass mark is 40%) in order to progress/graduate. This includes the I-Explore modules and the group project and for BEng students also the individual project.

Wishing you all the very best for the year ahead :-).