XFC4101 Review

Taken in AY20/21 Sem 1 to Sem 2.

This module is taken in place of CP4101 BComp Dissertation for those students doing a double honours programme and whose home faculty is the School of Computing.

The workload of this module is meant to be 1.5 normal modules (6 MC) per semester, but varies wildly since it is an open-ended individual project. It is essential to choose a good supervisor (usually a professor who has a similar research area to your project), especially for research projects where you require significant guidance from your supervisor. I recommend choosing a supervisor whom you already know or who is recommended by students working on projects with them.

You may define your own project topic and scope, or let your supervisor suggest topics that they think may be useful. For research projects, it may be beneficial to let your supervisor suggest topics, since they may be more aware of current research areas. You may also want to approach multiple potential supervisors, hear their suggestions on project topics, and then choose a project that you find interesting.

The defining difference between XFC4101 and CP4101 is that an XFC4101 project is double counted for both your first degree (i.e. the computing degree) and second degree. This requires you to have both a supervisor from your first degree programme and a supervisor from your second degree programme. However, these two supervisors may be the same person (i.e. a professor who holds a joint appointment in both departments). It is said that even if the two supervisors are distinct professors, usually only one of them will play a major role in your project — in this case, the advice in the previous paragraphs would probably apply just to the supervisor playing the major role.

Graded requirements and deadlines are exactly the same as that of CP4101; the requirements of the equivalent final-year project module of your second degree are to be ignored (at least for my case, where my second degree is applied mathematics).