In demand! Masters programmes at EPCC

Author: Ben Morse

Posted: 8 Nov 2019 | 15:27

The class of 2019 was the eighteenth cohort of EPCC MSc students and the first to be based at the Bayes Centre home. Our new surroundings have been immensely beneficial to the student experience, with the student desk space quite literally on the doorstep of staff offices and plenty of space to breakout for group study. Despite 2018/19 being our largest MSc intake in terms of entrants to that point, it was an incredibly cohesive group.

It is always sad to see the students depart EPCC, but it’s also a source of great joy when they successfully complete their studies and embark on the next stage of their careers. Students from this year have gone on to graduate destinations as diverse as Atos, Deloitte, Craneware, SeeByte, and EPCC itself. At least three students have gone on to PhD study, including one who is remaining at EPCC as part of the ASiMoV Prosperity Partnership.

Class of 2020

As much as we miss last year’s students, we have been delighted to welcome the next MSc cohort to EPCC. 

The class of 2020 is by far the largest we have had at EPCC so far, with 69 new students from 13 countries joining the programmes, alongside two continuing part-time students. Demand for the skills provided by our MSc programme is clearly demonstrated by the growth of both programmes, along with the large number of potential employers who contact us to pass job vacancies on to our alumni and graduating students.

We hope to be able to properly introduce you to many of the students in this year’s cohort in a future issue of EPCC News.

Looking ahead: milestones and new frontiers

The 2020/21 academic year still seems a long way off, but it marks a number of important milestones: EPCC’s thirtieth anniversary, the MSc in High Performance Computing’s twentieth cohort, and the launch of our online MSc programmes.

Online learning

For many years now, both the MSc in High Performance Computing, and High Performance Computing with Data Science have been available on-campus as one year full-time, or part-time over two or three years. However one major obstacle to potential part-time students has always been their ability to access classes: even if they are based in Edinburgh.

For the 2020/21 academic year both programmes will also be available online as part-time degrees, which students can complete over three to six years on an intermittent basis to enable flexibility around working/family commitments (ie students do not need to complete a set amount of credits within a particular year or Semester of the programme and there is no annual fee. Instead students pay on a per-course basis as and when they take them).

The programmes will also have multiple entry routes, including Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip), Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert), and Postgraduate Professional Development (PPD). PPD is a non-graduating route which allows students to take up to 50 credits of courses from the curriculum.

Given the increasing demand for places on the MSc programmes and the skills they teach, we hope the new online part-time study options will provide further avenues for a wide variety of people, including research software engineers, and those looking to develop or refresh skills.

Further information

On-campus programmes

MSc/PGDip High Performance Computing

https://edin.ac/2vu0nJn

MSc High Performance Computing with Data Science

https://edin.ac/2MPBErf

Online programmes

MSc/PGDip/PGCert/PPD in High Performance Computing

https://edin.ac/2J1Y9YL

MSc/PGDip/PGCert/PPD in High Performance Computing with Data Science

https://edin.ac/2pA7TCA

Author

Ben Morse, EPCC