Natural and Computing Sciences

Level 1 and Advanced Entry Level 2 Induction

Friday 18 September, 12.00pm, Meston Building, MT6

Your induction will be followed by a School welcome lunch in the Meston foyer at 1.00pm, where pizza will be provided.

This chapter aims to review the topics you should have covered in your final year at school or college of Advanced Highers or A levels. Please make some time to look over the content. Don't worry - we will provide a summary of these topics in your first year!

Chapter 1 of the main textbook Chemistry³ is available as a PDF.

At university you will have a lot more independence and responsibility for your own study. You will be responsible for filling the gaps in your timetable with self-study, reviewing class notes or listening to recorded lectures, doing practice worksheets or textbook problems, and writing lab reports and doing continuous assessments.

Over summer try to get into a good daily routine, including organising daily tasks such as cooking, shopping, or laundry, around any summer job, social time, or study. Or at least think about how good you are at time management, and consider ways you can make it work for you.

If you struggle to focus on tasks (and let's be honest, there's lots of distractions around!) you might want to consider a productivity hack such as pomodoro technique. A guide to this is on our really useful Uni Toolkit.

Get into the habit of reading - including thinking about what you agree or disagree with, and what you don't understand. It's ok not to understand something at first - that's what learning is all about!

You could consider science pages of well know broadcasters and newspapers, general science magazines such as New Scientist, or Chemistry World which is published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. This will help with your study routine and also help to develop your writing and explaining skills.

Maths - yes, we will use some numbers and equations! Students mainly struggle to apply the maths they know to a chemistry context. Look over the Chem³ chapter PDF available here, and think about the example calculations for a refresher.

Getting support. If you have any accommodations or provisions in place at school or college to help you with your studies, then you will need to let the University know. If you have a disability, ongoing health condition, or specific learning difference this information will not automatically follow you from school, so we need to be informed so we can best support you.

The Reading List Service is the library's designated service designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive, and accessible through your course area or through our public interface.

Please visit the Library website to find out how to access your reading list. 

General Enquiries
chemistry@abdn.ac.uk

You will be assessed in a variety of different ways; online multiple choice and typed answer tests, written lab reports, class exams. Continuous assessments may be individual or group work submissions.

We use a range of assessment methods to allow everyone to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in a variety of ways.

All of our labs will take place in the University's Science Teaching Hub.

The lab manual will be available online in advance. You will normally have to complete an online pre-lab test before coming to the lab to ensure that you are prepared and understand the experiment and health and safety issues. Some courses have online post-lab tests, and others have online submission of written lab reports. You will be given more information in class before your first lab session.

Guidance of Laboratory Coats and Safety Glasses

Please note that all new Science Teaching Hub students should possess a clean, white, Howie laboratory coat to use in laboratory classes.

This should be a 'Howie' style laboratory coat - elasticated cuffs, fastening all the way up to the neck with popper fastenings.

• Press stud fastenings are integral for Howie style coats to enable the coat to be removed quickly should contamination occur.
• Fabric - Polyester Cotton approximately [65% polyester:35% cotton]. Coats made from this fabric are light weight [195g/coat] and easily laundered.
• Older lab coats that are open at the collar or those with button fastenings are not suitable and should be avoided.

If a practical has a special exemption where a laboratory coat is not required, students will be informed. However, you should always assume you need your lab coat for practicals and bring it with you. If you do not bring a laboratory coat, you will not be admitted to a laboratory class.

You will be responsible for cleaning and maintaining your own laboratory coat and safety glasses throughout the term.

You can purchase a lab coat on campus from Bear Essentials in the Student Union Building.

Students must also bring their own safety glasses.

For Safety Glasses, there are many options available online. They should have side shields and have a suitable safety rating (EN 166). If you wear spectacles, you should look for styles of safety glasses that will fit over them.

Level 1 and Advanced Entry Level 2 Induction

Friday 18 September, 12.00pm, Meston Building, MT1

Your induction will be followed by a School welcome lunch in the Meston foyer at 1.00pm, where pizza will be provided.

General Enquiries
computingscience@abdn.ac.uk

The Reading List Service is the library's designated service designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive, and accessible through your course area or through our public interface.

Please visit the Library website to find out how to access your reading list.

Assessments may include essays, class tests (programming exercises, MCQs), timed assessments online, presentations, and formal exams. This will vary from course to course, and there will be specific details on every course page at the start of term.

Most courses will involve practical sessions to reinforce lecture materials. Where this requires a computer one will be provided in the allocated room, but most rooms will also have docking stations if you would prefer to use your own laptop. 
 
Where courses include placements, course coordinators will check in on students to ensure all is well.

For Computing Science degrees at Undergraduate level plus the MSc Information Technology and MSc Artificial Intelligence programmes:

All Students MUST have:

• A modern computer (not a phone or tablet) with stand-alone compute capacity and the ability to function when not connected to the internet (not a Chromebook etc).
• Students intending to study not fully online must have a functional laptop with a good battery that they can take to campus.
• Enough main memory (RAM) on the computer (indicatively, a typical minimum of 8GB)
• Enough free space on the hard drive (indicatively, a minimum of 40GB, for most activities, but more for some)
• A fast and stable enough internet connection to enable them to participate in online assessments and activities at scheduled times
• Built-in devices or peripherals to allow for interaction in meetings via sound and vision (camera, headphones).
• A backup drive, or cloud storage.

All students SHOULD:

• Arrange so that they will have uninterrupted access to their personal IT resources in the event of lockdowns
• Be advised to have to have a safe and comfortable place, properly configured with appropriate peripherals (e.g., large monitor, separate keyboard and mouse) to work for extended periods.

Students MAY use any operating system of their choice, with specific exclusions and caveats as below:

• The operating system MUST interface adequately with the University's information resources (webpages, MyAberdeen, MyTimetable, Student Portal, Office365, Microsoft Teams, etc.)
• Students without a Microsoft or Mac OS operating system (e.g. using Linux only) accept as their own responsibility any difficulties they may have in interacting with Microsoft Office products, e.g. through variations in supported fonts resulting in documents not displaying correctly.
• Students on the courses CS3026 Operating Systems and CS4048 Robotics MUST have access to the Linux Ubuntu operating system. A partition for dual-boot may have more acceptable performance than a virtual machine.

Students will be REQUIRED:

• To administer their own computers:
• This includes the requirement that they install and maintain the software required for courses or study on their machine.
• Digital and Information Services (DIS) do not do this. Academics in the School will not be able to do this.
• To install software on their machines as required for courses
• To set-up accounts and use accounts on third-party services used in courses, for example, but not limited to, Codio, Google, Amazon.

For students studying the MSc Data Science programme, the requirements are as follows:

Minimum requirements:

• Windows 10
• Mac OS 10.12 (Sierra) or later
• Linux (Ubuntu 16.04 or later or equivalent)
• Chrome Books, iPads, Surface Go, etc will not be sufficient
• Intel i7 or equivalent
• 16 GB of RAM
• 512 GB HDD
• >=13” screen
• Headset or appropriate speaker/microphone (Jabra)
• Internet access, download speed >5 MBits, upload >1 Mbit (Download of required software > 5GB, software is campus license)
• External hard drive

Ideal Specification:

• Windows 10, Mac OS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later, Ubuntu 19.04 or later
• Chrome Books, iPads, Surface Go, etc will not be sufficient
• Intel i7 or equivalent
• 32 GB of RAM
• 1GB SSD as HDD
• >=13” screen
• Headset or appropriate speaker/microphone (Jabra)
• Internet access, download speed >50 MBits, upload >10 MBits (Download of required software > 5GB, software is campus license)
• NVIDIA GPU (for Windows Systems, not supported by OS X)
• internet connection speed 8-10 MB/s download and 2 MB/s upload.

Level 1 Induction

Friday 18 September, 12.00pm, Meston Building, MT203

Your induction will be followed by a School welcome lunch in the Meston foyer at 1.00pm, where pizza will be provided.

The Reading List Service is the library's designated service designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive, and accessible through your course area or through our public interface.

Please visit the Library website to find out how to access your reading list.

At university you will have a lot more independence and responsibility for your own study. You will be responsible for filling the gaps in your timetable with self-study, reviewing class notes or listening to recorded lectures, doing practice worksheets or textbook problems, and writing lab reports and doing continuous assessments.

Over summer try to get into a good daily routine, including organising daily tasks such as cooking, shopping, or laundry, around any summer job, social time, or study. Or at least think about how good you are at time management, and consider ways you can make it work for you.

If you struggle to focus on tasks (and let's be honest, there's lots of distractions around!) you might want to consider a productivity hack such as pomodoro technique. A guide to this is on our really useful Uni Toolkit.

Get into the habit of reading - including thinking about what you agree or disagree with, and what you don't understand. It's ok not to understand something at first - that's what learning is all about!

Getting support. If you have any accommodations or provisions in place at school or college to help you with your studies, then you will need to let the University know. If you have a disability, ongoing health condition, or specific learning difference this information will not automatically follow you from school, so we need to be informed so we can best support you.

General enquiries
physics@abdn.ac.uk

You will be assessed in a variety of different ways; online multiple choice and typed answer tests, written lab reports, class exams. Continuous assessments may be individual or group work submissions.

We use a range of assessment methods to allow everyone to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in a variety of ways.

Level 1 and Advanced Entry Level 2 Induction

Friday 18 September, 12.00pm, Meston Building, MT2

Your induction will be followed by a School welcome lunch in the Meston foyer at 1.00pm, where pizza will be provided.

Director of Undergraduate Pathways
Dr Mark Grant
mark.grant@abdn.ac.uk 

Head of Department
Dr JB Gramain
jbgramain@abdn.ac.uk 

General Enquiries
maths@abdn.ac.uk 

The Reading List Service is the library's designated service designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive, and accessible through your course area or through our public interface.

Please visit the Library website to find out how to access your reading list.

Most courses will be assessed through Continuous Assessment and a final Exam. Continuous Assessment may include homework exercises, class tests, online tests, essays or projects.

Level 1 and Advanced Entry Level 2 Induction

Friday 18 September, 12.00pm, Meston Building, MT3

Your induction will be followed by a School welcome lunch in the Meston foyer at 1.00pm, where pizza will be provided.

General Enquiries
physics@abdn.ac.uk

The Reading List Service is the library's designated service designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive, and accessible through your course area or through our public interface.

Please visit the Library website to find out how to access your reading list.

Most courses will not be assessed by formal exams on campus, unless you are taking a course for which a formal exam is required by a professional body.

We will use alternative ways to assess your learning throughout the term. These may include essays, online exercises, and timed assessments online.

This will vary from course to course, and there will be specific details in every course guide at the start of term.

If your course includes lab work, we will aim to provide these, subject to safety constraints or create online alternatives.

Wednesday 23 September, 11.00am - 11.45am, Fraser Noble, FN156

Alice Murray
ncspgt@abdn.ac.uk

Leganto is the library's designated reading list service. It is designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive and accessible through your course area or through the public interface. 

Please visit the library website to find out how to access your reading list. 

Library website

NCS courses will be assessed through Continuous Assessment and a final Exam worth 50%. Continuous Assessment may include essays, projects, online exercises, and timed assessments online.

This will vary from course to course, and there will be specific details in every course guide at the start of term. For information on Business School courses please see the Business School page.

Monday 21 September, 2.00pm - 3.00pm, Taylor Building, Block A, A36

Alice Murray
ncspgt@abdn.ac.uk

Leganto is the library's designated reading list service. It is designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive and accessible through your course area or through the public interface. 

Please visit the library website to find out how to access your reading list. 

Library website

You will be assessed in a variety of different ways; online multiple choice and typed answer tests, written lab reports, class exams. Continuous assessments may be individual or group work submissions.

We use a range of assessment methods to allow everyone to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in a variety of ways.

Wednesday 23 September, 2.00pm - 3.00pm, Meston Building, M311

• MSc Artificial Intelligence
• MSc Information Technology 
• MSc Information Technology with Cybersecurity

Wednesday 23 September, 11.00am - 11.45am, MacRobert Building, MR815

• MSc Cybersecurity
• MSc Cybersecurity and Machine Learning

Alice Murray
ncspgt@abdn.ac.uk

Leganto is the library's designated reading list service. It is designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive and accessible through your course area or through the public interface. 

Please visit the library website to find out how to access your reading list. 

Library website

Most courses will not be assessed by formal exams on campus, unless you are taking a course for which a formal exam is required by a professional body. We will use alternative ways to assess your learning throughout the term. These may include essays, online exercises, and timed assessments online. This will vary from course to course, and there will be specific details in every course guide at the start of term.

If your course includes lab work or other kinds of practical sessions, we will aim to provide these subject to safety constraints or create online alternatives. If your course includes a placement, we will follow national guidance and health and safety requirements from professional bodies.

For Computing Science degrees at Undergraduate level plus the MSc Information Technology and MSc Artificial Intelligence programmes:

All Students MUST have:

• A modern computer (not a phone or tablet) with stand-alone compute capacity and the ability to function when not connected to the internet (not a chromebook etc).
• Students intending to study not fully online must have a functional laptop with a good battery that they can take to campus.
• Enough main memory (RAM) on the computer (indicatively, a typical minimum of 8GB)
• Enough free space on the hard drive (indicatively, a minimum of 40GB, for most activities, but more for some)
• A fast and stable enough internet connection to enable them to participate in online assessments and activities at scheduled times
• Built-in devices or peripherals to allow for interaction in meetings via sound and vision (camera, headphones).
• A backup drive, or cloud storage.

All students SHOULD:

• Arrange so that they will have uninterrupted access to their personal IT resources in the event of lockdowns
• Be advised to have to have a safe and comfortable place, properly configured with appropriate peripherals (e.g., large monitor, separate keyboard and mouse) to work for extended periods.

Students MAY use any operating system of their choice, with specific exclusions and caveats as below:

• The operating system MUST interface adequately with the University's information resources (webpages, MyAberdeen, MyTimetable, Student Portal, Office365, Microsoft Teams, etc.)
• Students without a Microsoft or Mac OS operating system (e.g. using Linux only) accept as their own responsibility any difficulties they may have in interacting with Microsoft Office products, e.g. through variations in supported fonts resulting in documents not displaying correctly.
• Students on the courses CS3026 Operating Systems and CS4048 Robotics MUST have access to the Linux Ubuntu operating system. A partition for dual-boot may have more acceptable performance than a virtual machine.

Students will be REQUIRED:

• To administer their own computers:
• This includes the requirement that they install and maintain the software required for courses or study on their machine.
• Digital and Information Services (DIS) do not do this. Academics in the School will not be able to do this.
• To install software on their machines as required for courses
• To set-up accounts and use accounts on third-party services used in courses, for example, but not limited to, Codio, Google, Amazon.

For students studying the MSc Data Science programme, the requirements are as follows:

Minimum requirements:

• Windows 10
• Mac OS 10.12 (Sierra) or later
• Linux (Ubuntu 16.04 or later or equivalent)
• Chrome Books, iPads, Surface Go, etc will not be sufficient
• Intel i7 or equivalent
• 16 GB of RAM
• 512 GB HDD
• >=13” screen
• Headset or appropriate speaker/microphone (Jabra)
• Internet access, download speed >5 MBits, upload >1 Mbit (Download of required software > 5GB, software is campus license)
• External hard drive

Ideal Specification:

• Windows 10, Mac OS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later, Ubuntu 19.04 or later
• Chrome Books, iPads, Surface Go, etc will not be sufficient
• Intel i7 or equivalent
• 32 GB of RAM
• 1GB SSD as HDD
• >=13” screen
• Headset or appropriate speaker/microphone (Jabra)
• Internet access, download speed >50 MBits, upload >10 MBits (Download of required software > 5GB, software is campus license)
• NVIDIA GPU (for Windows Systems, not supported by OS X)
• internet connection speed 8-10 MB/s download and 2 MB/s upload.

MSc Data Science

Monday 21 September, 10.00am - 12.00pm, Fraser Noble, FN114

Leganto is the library's designated reading list service. It is designed to support you in finding and engaging with your course reading lists. Through Leganto, you can access reading lists that are relevant, interactive and accessible through your course area or through the public interface. 

Please visit the library website to find out how to access your reading list. 

Library website

We will use various ways to assess your learning throughout the term. These may include essays, online exercises, and timed assessments both on campus and online. This will vary from course to course, and there will be specific details in every course guide at the start of term.

If your course includes lab work or other kinds of practical sessions, we will aim to provide these subject to safety constraints or create online alternatives. If your course includes a placement, we will follow national guidance and health and safety requirements from professional bodies.