29 July 1996 Lincoln computing degree offers wide scope for careers

Lincoln University has been in the computing business for almost 30 years with its first computer, an IBM 1130, being installed in August 1967. That was just five years after Canterbury became the first New Zealand University to acquire a computer, and only seven years after the country's first computer, an IBM 650, began work at the Treasury.

Today computing is a core compulsory subject in many of Lincoln's degree programmes and the University as a whole has one of the most 'computer friendly' campuses in the country with the highest number of public computer workstations per student of any of New Zealand's universities.

Of course computing in one way or another has applications in most areas of modern life and there are few careers now for which some level of computer literacy is not essential.

As Lincoln University Liaison Manager Peter Smith says, the need has never been greater for skilled people who can manage computer technology whether it be designing a system, developing software, managing its operation or providing training and user support.

Today Lincoln University's 'flag ship' computing degree is the Bachelor of Applied Computing. First offered this year, it provides flexible programmes to prepare students for a wide range of careers and future employment.

Up to half the course consists of essential and fundamental computing subjects while other subjects cover information systems including analysis and design and end user computing. Specialist subjects are available in technical computing, simulation and computer modelling and geographic information systems.

Students enrolled in the Bachelor of Applied Computing may also study in another area offered by Lincoln such as commerce, resource management, science, mathematics and statistics, environmental science, conservation and ecology, tourism, forestry management, transport, Maori studies, social science, agriculture or horticulture. Other subjects can be chosen from any of the courses available at Lincoln University.

The Bachelor of Applied Computing is a three-year degree involving 24 units of study and students who complete it meet the examination requirements for full membership of the New Zealand Computer Society.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.