Student Profiles
Nicholas Rees, current student on Computer Systems Engineering (January 2013)
The Computer Systems Engineering course has a broad range of modules that may at first seem slightly unrelated, however come together nicely to give students a wide range of knowledge in varied subjects, from programming and digital circuit design to multimedia analysis and delivery. The lecturers show enthusiasm in all they do, it really helps engage and interest. They encourage students to explore the subject, to be inquisitive. Brunel’s highly regarded Student Union provides an excellent service in promoting and supporting clubs and societies. With over 150 of them you will definitely find something that interests you. Should you not be engaging in club activities or studying, there are a couple of bars to relax in and meet people. The campus has a warm atmosphere with many different and inviting cultures.
Placements are a big thing here at Brunel, every effort is made to help students develop excellent employability. The Placement and Career Center (PCC) are very well equipped to support you in producing a CV, recommending summer internships and full placements, even helping you through the application process.
With the help of the PCC I found a placement in my third year as a Controls Engineer for Accurro based in Central London. This was an excellent insight into the working world, applying and improving on the knowledge and skill gained from my study here at Brunel, the fact it was a paid position which was a bonus! I managed to work amongst people that I respect and admire and learned a plethora of things that I could not possibly imagine before entering the job market. At the end of this year, I will be fortunate enough to have a CV with a top-class experience!
Placements are an invaluable learning experience and I would recommend all to take this opportunity if you can. Brunel’s placement scheme is so effective it has a very good reputation within companies; they actively look for students from Brunel.
Devansh Arora current student on Computer Systems Engineering (January 2013)
Computer Systems Engineering at Brunel University is a course designed to equip you with a vast variety of knowledge that is highly desired within the industry. The comprehensive structure of this course enables the fundamental values of computing and engineering to be instilled in students’ minds, through modules such as Digital Systems, Systems & Programming, and Computer Engineering Mathematics. The course then builds on top of these fundamentals to form a well-rounded understanding of the various avenues within this field, such as Networks, Security, Architecture & Interfacing, and Web Scripting. All these modules integrate well with each other, which is very evident within group projects, as the projects tend to incorporate a large selection of the taught skills. The facilities within the labs and lectures are of exceptional quality, enabling students to work efficiently and learn on the most modern, industry standard tools available. The lecturers and tutors are very passionate about their respective specialties, sharing their interests and motivating the students.
The Placement and Careers Centre (PCC) at Brunel is heavily involved with students and lecturers in order to improve the employability of students. A range of services, such as CV writing and interview practice, is readily available along with continual support, in order to improve the chances of securing a placement and/or graduate job. The PCC assisted me in securing my placement in my third year at Ernst & Young LLP as a Forensic Analyst within their Forensic Technology and Discovery Services (FTDS) sector. As I am currently in my placement year, the experience I’m gaining is absolutely invaluable. As I am writing this, I have been placed on a project that has required me to work in Dubai and Bahrain for the period of a month (all expenses paid), instead of my usual office in London Bridge! And the pay is fantastic as well.
On the social side, Brunel has plenty to offer. There are two bars and a nightclub situated on campus, and a selection of pubs on the local town high street ten minutes’ walk away from Brunel. With one of the best Student Unions in the country, both the nightlife and events arranged throughout the year are of exceptional standard, and a fantastic way to socialise with other students. Sporting facilities at Brunel are also of Olympic standard, with Usain Bolt and Jessica Ennis being regular attendees to name a few. Brunel University offers a very warm, broad cultural community that brings students together from all over the world with ease, while providing many opportunities to improve oneself academically, physically and socially.
Nicholas Boardman: BEng Computer Systems Engineering, 2013/2014 final year
Placement Year: 2012/2013
Company Name: National Air Traffic Services Ltd.
Salary Paid: £16,000
Job Title: Systems Engineer
Having been told numerous times about the benefits of doing a placement and the advantages of applying early, I did exactly that. Applying in October, I was invited for an interview at NATS in December and a week later, I was offered a placement.
Like most people, I had never heard of NATS before reading about them on the Brunel Placement and Careers Office’s u-Link (now BlackBoard) page. NATS is the National Air Traffic Services Ltd and their role is to provide for the safe, orderly and expeditious flow of air traffic within United Kingdom airspace.
Almost four months have passed now since I joined NATS for my placement year. During this time, I have been working as a Systems Engineer in the Surveillance Data Processing department, and have been recognised as a valuable asset amongst my team.
Whilst working with a number of friendly, approachable and talented colleagues, I have managed to get a first-hand experience of the work NATS do, exceeding my manager’s expectations. Furthermore, I have regular meetings with my manager and Placements Manager to ensure I am enjoying the role, and also gaining experience from, and learning new skills from the work I am doing.
Placement students are treated as normal employees, doing the same work with 100% support from the start. During the first few weeks, we had numerous presentations and training events set up to learn about everything from Air Traffic Control (and playing on the simulators) to sending meeting requests in Outlook. If I have any problems, there are many people I can talk to. In the first few months, every placement student is given a ‘buddy’, an ex-graduate, who is able to help you settle in and explain any difficulties from a first-hand perspective.
There’s never a dull moment. There is always work to do and projects to get involved with. I have mainly been involved with upgrading some of the Air Traffic Control systems. With a large increase in air traffic over recent years, the systems need to be able to handle the stress. I have personally been involved with programming the software and designing some of the networking that will be used in operational control towers and centres in a couple of years’ time.
There are many opportunities to get out of the office. So far I have been over to Heathrow Control Tower, our UK & London Control Centre in Swanwick and a number of radio and radar sites for installations and performing equipment testing. We even managed to get a free party from the MoD to celebrate our successful joint operations during the Olympics!
My experience from NATS doesn’t stop there though. There have been a number of opportunities presented to us to help improve and develop the Industrial Placement and Graduate Schemes. These include attending careers fairs and helping out with the assessment centres. I have also been involved in organising an Away Day for placement students and graduates to learn more about NATS and Air Traffic Control whilst also building competencies. There are also a number of social events that go on between the placement students and graduates to develop closer relationships within the company.
NATS has already had a huge impact on me and I have already gained a lot of experience, from professional business practise to improving personal competencies. These first few months have gone very quickly and there’s already talk about NATS giving me a 3rd year project and the potential for coming back as a graduate.
Alina Williamson: Computer Systems Engineering
Placement Year: 2011/2012
Company Name: Accenture
Job Title: Programmer
Salary Paid: £17 000
The Placement
I am in my final year studying Computer Systems Engineering and completed my placement year with a company called Accenture. I was originally on the three year course and did not want to complete a placement year, but attended the careers fair at Brunel, where there were representatives from Accenture. Talking to them, understanding the opportunities the company had to offer sounded like the career that I wanted to gain from my degree, so I decided to apply for the placement and I think overall it has been the best thing that I have done with respect to my university studies.
The placement began with a three day induction, which gave us a chance to get to know the other students within our “start group”. This totalled around 40/50 students from universities across the UK. The induction was a chance to learn about Accenture as a company and about how it functions. Accenture promotes networking across its employee base and this induction also provided us with the opportunity to extend this network, not only to our start group, but to staff of all levels via organised “networking events”. After the three day induction we were split into two groups and each completed a set training course. I completed a three week java course, which took place in Southwalk. Once this training course was complete the real work began!!
Work at Accenture is client-based and you are expected to be mobile. Some students were on a lot of different projects throughout the year and so were travelling to different client sites in different cities/countries. I was lucky in the fact that I was on one project for the whole year. I was based at a telecommunications client in Newbury for the year. This meant travelling up to Newbury on a Monday morning and staying there until Thursday when I would travel home and work from home on a Friday. While Accenture does expect you to travel, there are some perks to this! Accenture will cover all your costs of travel and accommodation while you are at the client sites. In some cases this can be an Accenture managed flat in the city you are working in, but in my case it meant that I was living in a hotel Monday to Thursday every week (4/5* spa hotel so not that bad!!).
Because Accenture is such a large company with such a range of clients, working for Accenture means that you can gain experience in a variety of different roles with different technologies, and then are able to focus your career in the direction you wish to take. In terms of my role for the year, it was not a technical role, but was more a consulting one. I was employed as an analyst within a team around managers of different levels within the company. My responsibilities began with producing a lot of status reports to give a view to management of how close we were to meeting our targeted deadlines, and any issues that we had been facing in delivering these. I was also responsible for gaining approval of our design and testing documentation from the client, and responding to any questions they had on this design. Although the work was at a high level and therefore not very detailed or technical, the role provided an opportunity to see how big projects are run in industry, and I was producing a lot of documentation for managers very high up in the project, meaning that I was able to gain contacts at a high level in Accenture for any future employment opportunities.
As the year progressed, and my role developed I was given more responsibilities and was therefore able to direct my role into areas that I was more interested in. Accenture is a great company for this – it is very concentrated on developing its staff and when you are employed by Accenture, you are provided with a career councillor to advise you on what roles or opportunities you should take in order to reach your career goals.
A tutor from Brunel visits a couple of times throughout the placement to discuss the kind of work being completed, and what I was gaining from the placement, and there is also coursework to complete including giving a presentation on the placement experience.
Overall I feel I have gained a significant amount from completing this placement – not only did it allow me to see how the techniques learnt at university are used within industry, but it also provided me with invaluable experience and a greater knowledge of what career I can gain from my degree. I have been offered a job back with Accenture once I have completed my final year, and I am really looking forward to going back and pursuing the career path that I began in my placement year.
I would recommend a placement year to any student that has the opportunity. You will find that you grow a lot during that year, and having a view of what your career will be like after university gives you a greater sense of focus for your final year.
Hamdullah Mohib graduated in Computer Systems Engineering
CSE covers a broad range of topics, from Web Design to Digital Control. This builds the students’ prospect for a larger number of career paths and expands opportunities for further education. Each course is taught by experts in the field who make even the driest subjects like Digital Systems easy and fun with their innovative teaching methods garnered by many years of experience.
Brunel has a very social and worldly campus, making it an ideal place of study. There are friendly people from all over the world, nice places to relax, socialise, and study, and many clubs and societies that cater to every taste. It is an active campus with a lot happening so you never get bored and are always learning new things and developing new skills.
I found a 15 month work placement at Intel through the Brunel Career Centre which helped me build my CV and prepared me for my interview. It was an invaluable learning experience. After graduation in 2008, this experience and my degree helped me land a job in IT. The management module taught in the second year of CSE and the skills I developed through the extracurricular activities I was involved with here at Brunel enabled me to excel at my job and I was soon promoted to a senior management role.
Two years later, in 2010, I decided to pursue a PhD in 3D Video Communication here at Brunel for which I secured a scholarship through the Isambard Research Scholarship.
Krilova Jelena graduated in Computer Systems Engineering
The Computer Systems Engineering course was best suited for me, as my interest have always been around computer technologies and engineering since childhood. The course proved to be very interactive, challenging and often fun. We had access to a lot of practical work with very modern technologies, and the coursework involved very creative tasks. Lecturers were highly professional and knowledgeable, not only in terms of academic skills, but also in their professional and industrial development.
On my third year I decided to take an industrial placement as part of the course, and received my first job out in industry. I worked for a company called Hawker Pacific Aerospace, starting initially as an IT support assistant and acquired really invaluable experience with all sorts of technologies in networking and communications, servers and various administrative software, as well as facing a lot of customers every day, and getting huge experience in building professional relationships with people.
I graduated with a first class honours degree in 2010 and also received a Siemens Medal Award for a successful placement and academic excellence. After graduation, I started to work as a Software Engineer in a young and dynamic start-up company called Turbulenz Limited, which is developing a revolutionary AAA games platform that runs entirely in the browser.
Mohammad Rafiq Swash graduated in BEng Computer Systems Engineering July 2007
"I came to Brunel with a background in computing having studied an HND in Computing. I was looking for an established university with a good engineering school. Now I can say that Brunel has lived up to my expectations. The modules are interesting and cover current areas of study in Computer Systems. The lecturers and staff are friendly and approachable.
The final year project is a large, integral part of the final year and it is important to pick a topic you are truly interested in. My final year project was a Real-time Distributed Backup System ( ReDBuS) under supervision of Dr.Kalganova.
The aim was to design and implement a real-time auto backup system. In this, four different system architectures (Lite, Professional, Enterprise and Enhanced Enterprise Edition) were proposed and Enhanced Enterprise Edition was implemented and fully tested, which produced excellent results. It distributes tasks/loads into four different independent tiers, which enable the system to handle more jobs/tasks efficiently. In this case, multiple backup tasks will be executed at one time without any battle nick. This is achieved adopting hybrid model, which is adopted from Client/Server and Peer-to-peer model.
The proposed system has an innovative way of file scanning/comparison in four different modes such as scanning files in source and target folders whereas target folder can be on a Backup server, Ftp server and/or Database server (DB objects/data records). It simply virtualises files on the database. Afterwards, changed files’ details are retrieved from the Database.
To validate the hypothesis, experiments were carried out using six various sized benchmarks in order to compare the performance of the existing and proposed systems. The experimental results revealed that proposed system performed well on all the benchmarks. On the other hand, the implemented system demonstrated the STABLE and the BEST performance in processing LARGE files of ANY complexity when the existing commercial applications either failed or utilised 100% of the processor time for the long period of time.
I graduated with a first class honours degree and also I was awarded UG Graham Hawkes prize and University Prize with Brunel University Medal. I must say, all this would not be possible without Dr.Kalganova’s supervision. As my project was involved in intensive programming plus architecture level, I needed to see Dr.Kalganova very often and her door was always open for me. I must say the supervisor plays a key role so work with someone who you really get on with!
Overall, I have had a brilliant time at Brunel and gained useful skills, e.g. working in a team, time management, project management etc. If you are actually interested in Electronic and/or Computer Engineering then Brunel is the right place for you.
In August 2008, I joined RUSHES project and I am currently pursuing my PhD programme at Brunel. My current research interests include automatic video image summarisation, clustering, annotation and retrieval."
Amit Ashokumar Ganatra graduated in July 2007 in the BEng Computer Systems Engineering
"I came from Kenya. I studied EDEXCEL Advanced Levels there and a Foundation course in engineering at Birmingham. I decided to come to Brunel firstly, because of location, then its ranking and renown for research, Also, Brunel was well known by companies in the UK.
The course was very exciting and wide-ranging from hardware to software. Having the opportunity to do a lot of practical work it made understanding the theory that was taught easy. A lot of support and guidance was given by the different lecturers. Brunel was very rich in resources : computing facilities and access to any information you needed in the library and e-journals. I witnessed a large campus redevelopment and modernisation and the campus has improved a lot with these recent developments e.g. the library, the lecture centre rooms, coffee shops and sports facilities.
I did a one year placement in Hammersmith with a company called Computeach. My initial role was support for on-line learners and helping the IT team in software development and project management. The placement was very valuable because it improved my skills in planning and organising, communication, teamwork and working with one’s initiative. I was paid in excess of £15k for that year. The placement helped me with the software and project management modules in my final year.
It’s been great being at Brunel and I have a lot of memories to cherish and I’ll miss it a lot. I would encourage students to come to Brunel because of its diversity, its ranking and reputation within companies and this has helped me to get a great job on graduation."
On graduation Amit began a full-time job, as a technical consultant with SQUIZ, an open source web development company originally based in Australia. Recently he has been offered a new position with Siemens-BBC as a Broadcast Systems Engineer. Amit said the final year project was very helpful in securing his new position.
Karishma Deshpande is a final year student on BEng (Hons) Computer Systems Engineering, 2007/8
"I came to Brunel with a background in engineering having studied a HND in Mechatronics which enabled me to gain direct entry in to year 2. I was looking for an established University with a good engineering school and reasonable international student fees.
I must say Brunel has lived up to my expectations. The modules are interesting and relevant and encompass current areas of study in Computer Systems. The level of difficulty of the coursework is reasonably high and it keeps you sharp. The lecturers are well informed in their fields. The final year project is a large integral part of the final year of the Undergraduate course. It is important to pick a topic you are genuinely interested in and give it the required time and attention. I am working on a project related to machine learning and if the results are good enough, I might even be able to publish!
On my third year I did an industrial placement with Intel Corporation in Swindon and it was a paid placement! Having a real job changes all you believe about working life – there were a lot of responsibilities and everyone at every rung of the ladder counts. I worked on multiple projects simultaneously with international teams and was involved in all aspects of the software development cycle. I also went on a couple of business trips to Amsterdam, and got a certificate of recognition for one of my projects!
I won the placement through help that I received from the Work Placement Office at Brunel. The Placement Office regularly advertises opportunities for the coming year and this is the first place to look for an internship. The people at the Placement Office are very supportive and they teach you to sell yourself on your CV and prepare you for assessment centres. My CV looks a whole lot better now and it gives me an edge over another candidate with no work experience.
Although Brunel is a fairly old, established University, the campus is surprisingly fresh. We have a new student union and more than a couple of good places to eat on campus. The classroom facilities and computer labs are top of the range.
I have had a brilliant time at Brunel and learnt to use a number of applications, successfully completed a year long placement and received an award from Siemens for being the top engineering student at Brunel. Clearly, these few years shall provide a firm foundation for me to build my career in software engineering.
Any University experience is dependant on how dedicated and focussed you are. If you are genuinely interested in Electronic and/or Computer Engineering, Brunel gives you all the tools to be the best."
Anna Anderson - Graduated June 2004 in BEng Computer Systems Engineering
"As an overseas mature student, choosing the right university was an important task for me. Having attended Brunel’s Open Day four years ago I became excited and motivated at the prospect of becoming a Brunel student. So rather than take up a place at another university, I chose Brunel. I decided to do Computer Systems Engineering because I love computers and the course provided the comprehensive and in-depth study of all the component areas of computer systems that I was seeking.
Student life at Brunel has been very rewarding. Amongst my more interesting student experiences was trying to learn Spanish. I have never regretted choosing Brunel. I found my lecturer’s extremely dedicated and supportive. They displayed genuine interest in my welfare, providing support for both academic and non- academic issues. Now as a graduate I can list them my friends. There are also numerous other support facilities whose help has been invaluable to my personal development. These include both academic and professional programmes.
Having taken part in the university industrial placement scheme I had the opportunity to work professionally for an entire year whilst studying. Aside from the excellent professional experience, friends and references this has provided me with, it has proven to be a very sound start to my career as I was offered a permanent position before I even finished my degree!
Now as a graduate, I know I will be going back to Brunel to do my higher degrees, why would I want to do it anywhere else? My time at Brunel has been a truly exciting and fulfilling one. I enjoyed being a student, even a mature one."
