Engineering, computing and technology

Interactive Learning Skills and Communication (ILSC) will help you to develop your academic, research, communication, and literacy skills in preparation for your undergraduate degree. ILSC covers reading, writing, speaking, and listening and will give you an understanding of institutional culture, practices, norms, and expectations of UK higher education. You will develop transferable skills such as effective communication to support ongoing study, career, and professional development skills.

Information Communication Technology (ICT) provides you with the practical computer skills needed for university. In this module, you will cover fundamental topics surrounding the use of technology and discuss these together with societal and ethical perspectives. This will allow you to reflect on and discuss the main challenges facing society and consider the implications of your technology use. This module requires no previous technical experience and will introduce you to practical ICT skills that will be needed for academic success across many areas of higher education. By the end, you should have sufficient proficiency in the Microsoft Office productivity suite for planning and producing presentations, using functions, and writing formula to display, formatting and analysing quantitative data, and producing written assignments to a standard appropriate to higher education.

This module aims to enable you to participate in and practice independent learning tasks for deeper thought and investigation as needed for Higher Academic pursuits. You will participate in a Socratic Discussion based around Conspiracy Theories and Source Checking to encourage presentation and debating skills. You will be encouraged to invest in strategies that will deepen understanding and interpretation of processes, motives, argument, rationale, credibility, and possibilities which will then be applicable to a range of studies. You will also undertake research, based on an issue related to your degree programme, to review the main points of examining an argument in depth. You will then learn to create a personal response that analyses the content of the issue under study.

Maths for Scientists will ensure that you have the necessary basic mathematical skills required for entry to level 4 on various science related degree programmes. By the end of the course, you will be able to carry out the basic mathematical manipulations and understand the relevant key concepts required to progress on to your chosen degree course. Each mathematical concept is introduced by a lecture, in which examples of how to use and apply the concept are demonstrated. The subjects covered are a range of arithmetic skills, algebra, areas and volumes, trigonometry, and basic statistics.

Maths for Engineers has been designed to support you in progressing onto engineering and computing degree programmes. This module will make extensive use of calculus, vector, and matrix mathematics and will call attention to the application of pure maths to engineering and computing problems. Throughout the module, you will build on basic maths concepts to prepare for success in level 4 programmes which have a heavy mathematical focus.

Physics for Engineers will teach you the basics in physical sciences needed to prepare you for your studies in Engineering and Computing. You will analyse the motion of objects in 1 and 2 dimensions with constant acceleration and will become familiar with friction and its effect in moving and static systems. You will also study simple statically determinant systems and will be able to calculate forces in equilibrium. Finally, you will work on concepts of conservation of mechanical energy and conservation of momentum and will be able to apply them to simple situations.

Fundamentals of Computing will introduce you to basic computer programming using a low-level programming language (C). You will not be required to have previous programming experience for this module as you will learn the basic principles, such as the structure of a program, syntax of simple statements, data types, functions, files, design and testing, and problem solving. By the end of this module, you should have sufficient mastery of the C programming language to allow you to design, implement and test simple programs. The material taught to you in this module is intended to form skills directly transferable to the workplace, giving you a basic foundation which will allow you to apply programming skills in your subsequent studies.

Engineering Design has been created to help you progress to Engineering, Computer Science, or Architecture degree programmes. This module focuses on putting your studies into context in the wider world, by considering how different professions must collaborate in the world of work. This module will consider several unique design processes, and how they might be implemented by multi-disciplinary teams, as well as how the design activity fits within the wider business context.