Alan Richardson completed his MSc in 2009 and is now doing a PhD in Geophysics at MIT
The year I spent in Edinburgh was one of the most enjoyable in my life. Very friendly staff and classmates, together with excellent facilities and a beautiful city created a welcoming and supportive environment. Coupling this with a teaching method that is one of the best I have encountered and interesting course content resulted in me learning a lot of useful information and developing important skills. I am very thankful to EPCC for such a wonderful experience.
Pablo Barrio graduated MSc in 2009 and is also studying for a PhD
Studying the MSc in HPC at the EPCC, Edinburgh, has been the best decision I’ve made in the last years. It was the first time I flew away from home and, for me, Edinburgh will always remain as my second home. I’ve met a lot of friends, some of which are still living there. Studying HPC has been really fulfilling and the possibility of using real HPC resources is by itself a reason to study at EPCC, but in addition I’ve also found many outstanding teachers during the year. The degree has turned out to be the reason for being offered the PhD position, where I currently work.
Hui Jiang is a graduate from 2009
What I will never forget is the time I have spent here. The knowledge I learned will help me a lot in my future, the spirit and friendship I gained will support all the rest of my life.
The skills you will acquire are applicable both to academic computational science research and to a wide range of careers in science, engineering, industry and commercial software development. Previous graduates have gone on to a PhD in areas that utilise HPC technologies, including astrophysics, biology, chemistry, geosciences, informatics and materials science. Others have gone directly to employment in a range of commercial areas, including software development, petroleum engineering, finance and HPC support.
John Spray completed his MSc in the summer of 2007 and after graduating took a job as a library developer at Quadrics.
While I already had some scientific programming experience, the degree of expertise of staff and students at EPCC provided unparalleled opportunities to develop my existing skills and broaden my computing knowledge. The chance to work with cutting edge multiprocessor technology during my dissertation project was highly rewarding, and provided hands-on experience that proved invaluable in starting a career in HPC.
Albert Anthony, a former student on the MSc, was also employed by Quadrics Ltd after graduating.
I decided to take the MSc out of a fascination for the idea of tackling problems of a Grand Challenge nature. A year later, it has made me a specialist in a unique field and opened up numerous career opportunities for me. I now work as a software engineer with Quadrics, a company based in Bristol, that makes interconnects for HPC systems and the 10G ethernet. And here I find most of what I learnt at EPCC coming back to me, from the “ping pong” program to the final dissertation, from exploiting simple concepts to seeing a project through from its inception to completion.
Xing Chen now works as a Senior Consultant for Bull S.A.
I have to say, the MSc in HPC course by EPCC boosted my career with a wide variety of opportunities; although at the beginning I decided to do the course merely for personal interest, without thinking about that very much. However it has secured me a Senior Consultant position with Bull S.A., and what I learned during the course in Edinburgh has proved to be very useful and practical when marketing Bull’s products and services to the HPC market…
Mark Westood went on to work in high-performance computing in the oil industry. He is currently a Principal Software Engineer with PGS Multi-Transient EM in Edinburgh, a company providing electromagnetic surveying and data interpretation services to the oil industry.
I took the course to change the direction of my career in IT and am very pleased with the outcome. I enjoyed the course tremendously and, even better, I’m now working in high-performance computing, parallelising and optimising the performance of a large suite of numerical electromagnetic analysis programs. Much of what I learned at EPCC is invaluable every day.
Jon Hill went on to gain a PhD, then returned to work for us at EPCC as an Applications Consultant before moving down to London to work at Imperial College.
I had done some programming in Fortran and Basic before, but I didn’t really know anything about HPC before I started the course - so just about everything was new to me! I’m about to start a PhD in the Department of Geophysics here at Edinburgh, looking at 3D-simulation of carbonate formations. I’ll be using just about all the material I learned over the last year, from parallelising code through to visualisation, so the MSc has given me a great start for my PhD… it doesn’t just cover HPC-specific stuff, it also has modules on software design and project management, OO design… I think it would be pretty useful for anyone interested in computational science really
Martin Chorley completed his MSc in 2007 and is now studying for a PhD.
I found studying for the degree in Edinburgh at such a vibrant and friendly place as EPCC immensely enjoyable. It was also interesting to be studying alongside a wide range of people; from students completing the MSc part-time while working, through full-time MSc students, to other PhD students taking the MSc as part of the HEC programme. The MSc has equipped me with valuable skills in parallel programming and analysis, and having now successfully completed the MSc, I have returned to my research at Cardiff University equipped with the knowledge and skill set I need to advance and complete my PhD.
Geraldine McKenna completed her MSc in 2007 through the High End Computing Studentship Scheme and is now completing her PhD.
I joined the MSc in 2007 with little experience in computer programming. As a result of the MSc in HPC, I developed advanced programming skills in Fortran, Java, C and C++. Coming from a mathematics background, I was awarded a HEC scholarship to complete the HPC course part-time alongside my PhD studies in theoretical and computational physics. The skills developed during the MSc are a huge asset to my PhD. In particular, it helped me to port my PhD code to existing platforms, obtain optimum performance from the code, and allow me to develop parallel codes. Overall, the course is very enjoyable and offers significant opportunities for further development in advanced programming.