Computer science involves the design and architecture of computers, the development of programmes and the effective construction of systems.
Computer scientists research, develop and design computer software, hardware, and systems for scientific and technical applications.
What do computer scientists do?
Modern computer science is involved in every aspect of industry and business and underpins every aspect of our personal lives. Computing is an exciting and challenging subject of great economic and social importance.
Computer scientists work in areas such as: Artificial intelligence Cryptography Speech technology Web design Computer graphics Software engineering Computer science is an interdisciplinary subject.
It is firmly rooted in engineering and mathematics, with links to linguistics, psychology and other fields. When concerned with hardware design it can overlap with electrical and electronic engineering. The development of circuits made directly on silicon chips gives a link to solid state physics.
Formal methods for the construction, analysis and validation of software can, on the other hand, involve much mathematics. Practical computer science is concerned with constructing hardware and software systems: digital electronics, compiler design, programming languages, operating systems, networks and graphics.
Theoretical computer science addresses fundamental issues: the notion of computable function, proving the correctness of hardware and software and the theory of communicating systems.
Career opportunities in computer science
Computers are to be found everywhere and their role in the world is constantly expanding, making computer science an exciting and rapidly growing area that offers a diverse range of career paths.
A degree in computer science opens up many career opportunities in, for example, industry, business, and health care.
Graduates can find themselves working on topics such as aids for the disabled, medical imaging, industrial control; they could be designing graphical interfaces, building video-based information systems, and constructing custom solutions for a wide variety of problems.
There are also opportunities to work in exciting emerging new applications in association with areas such as internet applications development, e-commerce, assistive health care for the disabled, systems technology, graphics and games programming.
Graduates find employment as web developers, programmers, computer technicians, network administrators and also in areas such as sales, business applications and software localisation. There is therefore a demand all over the world for professionals trained in the use of computing software and hardware and the dynamic nature of computing means that there is always potential for designing novel and exciting products and services.
Source: SmartFutures.ie
Smart Futures
