Before University
National Computer Science School (NCSS)
The National Computer Science School (NCSS) is a 10-day long summer school for students in Year 11-12. NCSS brings together talented young people from around Australia for an intensive week of computer programming and web site development in the School of Information Technologies, at The University of Sydney.
NCSS has been offered in various formats since 1996, when it was initiated by the University’s Foundation for Information Technology. This makes 2010 the 15th year of the program.
NCSS is organised by academic staff, alumni and students of the School of Information Technologies. The school is completely residential, with all students staying with NCSS staff in full-board accommodation provided by The Women’s College, within the main Camperdown campus of The University of Sydney.
Students do not need to have experience with programming or web design to apply. In fact, the course assumes no previous experience but has been designed to suit a wide range of abilities and experience.
Students will develop a search engine and website for a major national charity. Previous charities include the Heart Foundation, Canteen and Youth Off The Streets.
The NCSS program involves learning:
- The NCSS program involves learning:
- an object-oriented scripting language
- how search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live work
- how web pages are transmitted
- how to write software to retrieve and process webpages
- about dynamically generated web content
- to use professional web design tools
Students who are good at computing, science, mathematics or visual art, or very enthusiastic about computing are encouraged to apply.
More information on the National Computer Science School »