-Note that the following are students perspectives on these courses, and as such may be heavily biased, disillusioned, or even libelous. 

-As another, somewhat related, note, the comments relating to a particular course may be in reference to a particular year. The notes regarding COMP314, for example, relate to that particular year only. To my knowledge, most years [Z] has not been taught in that year. The rest of the stuff about drawing diagrams is correct, although I'd like to point out that *real* software *is* written this way. 

-; COMP10{3A,4B} : The two compulsory introduction to programming courses. Taught using a mangled heap of C and C++. Many people believe this course should be taught in Java. Also has a concept side where CS topics such as logical operations, binary, basic sorting etc etc are introduced.  

-; COMP123 __The Computing Experience__ : Do not underestimate the workload of this first year bunny course. It is very popular with BA students. This is a good thing if you are a male computer science student. 

-; COMP140 __Foundations of Computer Science__ : A lot of stuff that sounds cool, but isn't. 140 is compulsory. Most of the smartest people I know failed it. It is UNBELIEVABLY boring. If you can help it, don't go to any of the lectures, but go to all the tutorials. (Second opinion: this stuff is the closest you get to computer science (rather than programming) in first year. Learn this stuff the easy way or learn it later the hard way.)  

-; COMP153 __Practical Programming__ : Visual Basic programming for idiots. People who can't handle 103/104 do this paper, and continue onto 258. (Second opinion: great for people doing computer science so they can put together fancy Excel packages) 

-; COMP201Y __Computer Systems__ : an introduction to assesmbly language, tought using a full custom CPU and reference board. Used to use MIPS but was replaced to eliminate some nasties. Also covers basic compilation, OS principals, Memory Managment, Comms. Can be sat in 1st year by scholarship students. People doing graphics & multimedia wonder why they have to do this. Second best course you'll do behind 317 if you actually like computers.  

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-; COMP219 __Database Practise and Experience__ : A course about Databases and VisualBasic. While this course focuses on databases and SQL it relied too much on your VisualBasic programming for it's assesment. Unfortunately, this course presents MS-SQL as the standard and fails to present any alternatives. 2001 was a bad year for this course (bad organization, theoretically impossible exam questions), it's probably changed since. (Second opinion: mainly obvious if you can program and have a sound understand of set theory )  

-; COMP222 __Logic and Programming__ : This course (if it hasn't changed from 2002) comprises of two disjoint parts, they run at the same time, but don't appear to link up with each other at all. Part 1 is learning about logic, you spend your lectures listening to Edwin Hung's Philosopy with a bit of logic thrown in. Part 2 is prolog, during lectures I was able to observe the lecturer read out of the course book, and write some code fragments on the blackboard. Occasionally when you turn up for a lecture it is actually a test, so it pays to attend, or read your course outline. (Note: The prolog part has a new lecturer so this may all be crap) 

-; COMP224 __Computer Graphic Design__ : This used to be a great course when Steve Franks was still teaching it. He is not teaching it anymore, but you might still learn something if you are interested in computer graphic design. At the very least you'll get a pretty portfolio out of it.  

-; COMP233 __Internet Applications__ : This course used to be 333 a couple of years ago. Now it's about PHP and MySQL and stuff. Sample exam question: "Write JavaScript code to pop up an ad window when you load the page." Seriously.  

- ''Note that this course is not COMP333, it was introduced I believe in order to move some material from COMP333 to second year and to introduce more concent in COMP333 in 2003.''  

-; COMP240 __Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science __ : Once you've done 140 you'll know why you don't want to do 240. As the name says, take 140 and add maths. 

-; COMP304 __Graphics and Multimedia__ : Good for those who want to learn OpenGL, or it would be if they bothered teaching it. This paper is split between graphics and multimedia, about half and half as the title suggests. As such you learn a small amount about both and you don't really learn anything useful at all.  

-; COMP311 __Computer Systems Architecture__ : A good hardware-oriented paper made hard to stomach sometimes by a lack of enthusiasm by the lecturer. You get to design your own CPU layout etc and if you do 441 you actually get to build it.  

-; COMP312 __Communications and Systems Software__ : First true comms course. Covers signaling, encoding, LAN and WAN technologies, TCP/IP etc etc. Has in previous years been taught, arranged or tutored in part by [JamieCurtis], [MatthewLuckie] and [DanielLawson]. 

-''I think that the processes learnt in 314 (especially the use of UML, robustness/sequence diagrams etc.) are very useful for __large__ software engineering projects. The problem with 314 is that you design a large peice of software and then have no time to to implement it (even in a prototypical form) the course is structured so that you can't start implementing your code until the last quarter of semester -- MattBrown''%%% 

-''True, what I was really meaning was that in my opinion small peices of software do not need to be engineered to the same level as large systems, hence the engineering techniques that we are using are not often useful for small projects. --MattBrown'' 

-; COMP333 __Communication Systems and Internet Management__ : This course is still running in 2003 although I notice that the course description hasn't changed from previous years, and as such it looks similar to COMP233 in content. Its generally a high-level networking course, focussing more on Management type issues so is quite popular with people who cant handle the real networking course, COMP312, or Management students (who arguably cant handle computer science in general) 

-; COMP410 __Programming Languages and Compilers __ : When I did it (in 2001) the goal was to write a compiler for a language you make up. A really fun course. Unfortunately it tends to clash with people doing 420. It doesn't seem to clash with people doing 420 any longer. It is broken up between programming languages and compilers now. You will at least have to write a compiler that produces basic assembly code and perhaps more. The programming languages bit of the course could be on any programming language, it was Haskell in 2002. 

-; COMP416 __Topics in Artificial Intelligence __ : Not so much artificial intelligence as machine learning. This is the course where you just write algorithms for the [Weka] framework every other week and test them against better algorithms. 

-Any other CS students feel free to add descriptions / experiences