The state-of-the-art Callan building houses one of Maynooth universities youngest departments - computer science. The department was founded in 1987, just 192 years after the university first put down roots. Students applying through the CAO this year will have the option of applying for the college's latest offering - a new degree in computer science and software engineering which will begin in October 1998.

Previously, computer science was offered through science in Maynooth. Why the need for a new directentry degree? Professor David Vernon explains that students who took computing within science got a good grounding in physical sciences and a good knowledge of computer science. "But there is a limit to what you can teach in four years. We were unable to teach some things to the depth we wanted. This is a perfect opportunity to design a degree from the bottom up."

There is a need for very high quality computer science graduates in Ireland, he adds. It took more than a year to come up with the format for the new degree. It was not just a reaction to Forbairt's publicising of the skills shortages, he says.

"We built the degree around the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) curricula," says Vernon. "This is something I am particularly proud of. This is the de facto computing curriculum against which the best curricula are measured."

This core is supplemented by areas in which Maynooth is particularly strong, including signal processing and software engineering. Business organisation and organisational behaviour are also covered.

"Computer programmers don't work in isolation in front of a screen. They must understand the decisionmaking processes. We also built in a very strong mathematical strand." Students will do a six-month placement in industry. "They will get a very broad and very deep education, not just a training," says Vernon. "We want a professional to emerge from this degree who can produce early in his or her career and who can go to a very high level of accomplishment. They will be in the vanguard of IT development world wide. That is our goal."

There will be 80 first-year places available next year. Students will need a minimum of an ordinary-level B3 in maths or a higher-level D3 to be eligible for a place. The points level remains to be seen.

The department has produced a very high quality CD ROM which it is sending to schools in a bid to introduce the programme to the type of high-calibre students Vernon is seeking. Some 3,000 CDs and 1,000 videos (for schools with no CD ROM drives) have been made.

Speaking on the CD ROM, lecturer Helen Sherlock says that there is a misunderstanding about maths and computing and that, almost, being good at English gives a better graduate. "Computer science is not just a techie subject," adds Vernon. "It's also a creative subject. The ability to think and express yourself clearly is very important."

It may seem a little premature to talk of career prospects for a course that yet to recruit its first students. However, job prospects in computing are particularly bright so some optimism can certainly be justified. The college brochure says "graduates will find themselves working on topics such as aids for the disabled, medical imaging, industrial control - they will be designing graphical user interfaces, building video-based information systems, and construction custom solutions to a wide variety of problems."

The place

The National University of Ireland, Maynooth, was established in 1795. It was made a university of the NUI this year. The college has more than 4,000 students in the faculties of science, arts, theology, philosophy and Celtic studies. The campus is bisected by the Maynooth-Kinnegad road with a modern complex, including the Callan building, which houses computer science to the north, and the older 19th century buildings to the south.

The department

The department of computer science was founded in 1987 and has 14 full-time staff including 10 academic staff and four support staff. There are about 330 undergraduate students, 30 post-graduate students and 100 students pursuing a conversion course (a higher diploma in information technology). Facilities: The department of computer science is housed in the purpose-built Callan building which accommodates two Unix and NT software labs with more than 100 workstations as well as PC software lab with 60 PCs (soon to be upgraded). There is also an acousto-optical research lab, a computer vision lab and three general research labs.

The degree

A four-year-honours programme, it comprises 48 modules in computer science, software engineering, maths, business and organisational studies; extensive supervised practical work; a six-month placement in industry and a final year project.

Course topics in year one: algorithms and data structure; architecture; business operations and organisational behaviour; databases; programming languages and problem solving; mathematics; process and product quality; software methodology and engineering.

What else?

More information: Ask your guidance counsellor for a copy of the college's video or CD ROM or access the department's World-Wide Web pages at http://www.cs.may.ie Or if all else fails, write to the department.