ACS Software Engineering: The University of Manchester

Course description
Software Engineering is a well-established, central part of Computer Science, and concerned with the design and use of techniques to support humans to build software systems that are reliable, adaptable, usable, maintainable, etc, despite the fact that they are usually developed by large groups of people with different ideas, conceptualisations, or working styles, and against a tight  schedule and possibly conflicting or unclear requirements. The understanding and mastering of these techniques is essential both for people who are part of this group and for those managing such a group or project.
The Software Engineering pathway combines a theme of the same name, Software Engineering, with the Data Management theme. The former covers both an overview of existing approaches to Software Engineering, and two particular approaches at the forefront of Software Engineering research and practice; Pattern-based and Component-based Software Development. The latter covers the design, maintenance and query processing of both structured and unstructured databases as well as knowledge discovery and learning from data and Semantic Web technologies and ontologies.
Career opportunities
Students following the Software Engineering pathway have all the career choices and options as described for general Advanced Computer Science.
In addition, students of this pathway are ideally placed to work in positions requiring an understanding of modern Software Engineering techniques and tools. This includes the obvious positions in the games industry, but also positions in finance, commerce, software project management, etc.
Entry requirements
Academic entry qualification:
They require a First or Upper Second class honours degree, or the overseas equivalent, in computer science, or in a joint degree with at least 50% computer science content. Applicants with extensive computer science industrial experience and a good honours degree, or its overseas equivalent, may also be considered for admission.
English language requirements:
All students are required to be proficient in spoken and written English. In order to be accepted onto an MSc programme in the School of Computer Science applicants need to provide evidence of having achieved the required level in one of the following english language qualifications:

• IELTS score of 6.5 minimum (writing 6)
• Internet based TOEFL 100 with 24 in writing
• Computer Based TOEFL 250 with 5 in TWE
• Cambridge Proficiency Grade 'C'