Program Overview

Introduction to the University of Kent

The University of Kent is a leading research university that offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The university is committed to providing a high-quality education and research experience to its students.

Advanced Computer Science MSc

The Advanced Computer Science MSc program is designed for graduates with a background in computer science who want to deepen their expertise and expand their skills to further their career in technology. The program offers a wide range of choice, allowing students to tailor their studies to their interests and career aspirations.

Key Information

• Study mode: Full-time or part-time
• Duration: One year full-time, two years part-time
• Start date: September, January
• Location: Canterbury

Course Structure

The course is built around a wide range of options, allowing students to tailor the content to fit their interests. In the first term, students are required to choose one of two compulsory modules: Advanced Java for Programmers or Python Programming. Students then choose five optional modules from a list of available options. At the end of the course, students complete a project and dissertation.

Compulsory Modules

• Project & Dissertation: This module guides students through the different stages of working on an exciting computer science project.
• Advanced Java for Programmers: This module expands students' programming skills with more advanced Java techniques.
• Python Programming: This module prepares students for the exciting world of AI and programming by giving them the fundamental programming knowledge they need in the context of the Python programming language.

Optional Modules

• Object-Oriented Programming: This module focuses predominantly on the Java programming language and covers the fundamentals of programming, such as variables, statements, and methods.
• Cognitive Robotics: This module introduces students to cognitive robotics, a branch of robotics in which knowledge plays a central role in supporting action selection, planning, and execution.
• Computational Creativity and Creative AI: This module explores key theoretical, practical, and philosophical research and issues around computational creativity and creative AI.
• Natural Language Processing: This module delves into Natural Language Processing (NLP) and covers how cutting-edge technology is being used in human language understanding and manipulation.
• Cryptography and Systems Security: This module explores Cryptology, the science of creating secure mechanisms of communication, and ways in which they can be used, circumvented, or broken.
• Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery: This module covers data mining and knowledge discovery techniques, which are widely used in real-world applications.
• Deep Learning: This module investigates modern deep neural networks, starting from the fundamentals of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs).
• Digital Forensics: This module focuses on computer forensics and multimedia forensics, introducing concepts and best practices relevant to uncovering digital evidence in an investigative setting.
• Ethical Hacking: This module equips students with a mindset to think as an attacker while planning for an ethical and legal course of actions for security assessment and penetration testing of a target.
• Introduction to Quantum Computing & Quantum Cryptography: This module studies two particularly promising quantum technologies: quantum computation and quantum cryptography.
• Machine Learning: This module develops students' ability to make sound, rational, and effective judgments and decisions about the use of core machine learning algorithms for different types of practical problems.
• Network Security: This module discusses various threats and countermeasures, along with recent computer network technology trends and novel protocols.
• Privacy & Cyber Law: This module guides students through all the questions related to protecting privacy and ensuring others respect privacy in the digital age.
• Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security: This module equips students with the knowledge and hands-on skills required to understand machine learning and deep learning algorithms, models, and architectures, and how they are applied to address cyber security challenges.

How You'll Study

• Teaching and assessment: Assessment is through a mixture of written examinations and coursework, the relative weights of which vary according to the nature of the module. The final project is assessed by a dissertation.
• Programme aims: For course aims and learning outcomes, please see the course specification.
• Study support: While studying, students can gain work experience through the university's industrial placement scheme. The university has strong links with industry, including IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.
• Postgraduate resources: The university has a large range of equipment, providing both UNIX and PC-based systems, and a cluster facility consisting of 30 Linux-based PCs for parallel computation.

Your Future

• Graduate destinations: Our graduates have gone on to work in software engineering, mobile applications development, systems analysis, consultancy, networking, web design and e-commerce, finance and insurance, commerce, engineering, education, government, and healthcare.
• Help finding a job: The University has a friendly Careers and Employability Service, which can give advice on how to apply for jobs, write a good CV, and perform well in interviews.
• Industrial placements: Students can gain practical work experience as part of their degree through the university's industrial placements scheme.

Fees and Funding

• The 2025/26 annual tuition fees for this course are:
  • Full-time: £10,000 (UK), £23,500 (EU), £23,500 (International)
  • Part-time: £5,000 (UK), £11,750 (EU), £11,750 (International)
• For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see the Student Finance Guide.
• Tuition fees may be increased in the second and subsequent years of the course. Detailed information on possible future increases in tuition fees is contained in the Tuition Fees Increase Policy.

General Information

• University of Kent
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• Postgraduate courses
• Advanced Computer Science MSc
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