The Computer Science Tripos Part II (General) is a one-year non-specialist course intended for third- or fourth-year undergraduates. It normally attracts transfers from Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering, and is not available to those who have read Part IB Computer Science. To be a candidate for honours a student must have obtained honours in the previous year in the subject he or she is coming from.
It is a limited entry course and there is a mandatory two-week
programming course in the last fortnight of July in the previous Long
Vacation.
Part II (General) covers a wide range of Computer Science topics and
aims to give as broad and coherent a coverage of the subject as is
possible within a single year. The lecture and examination structure
provides students with a significant amount of flexibility in the
selection of their courses. This makes it possible for students to
select advanced courses in areas closely related to their previous
studies, while still gaining a reasonable foundation in areas that
they have not previously encountered.
Some courses are indicated as prerequisite for later ones. Where a
course is shown as a prerequisite for a Diploma course this should be
regarded as being a prerequisite for the Part II (General) course, too.
The syllabus information given here is for guidance only and should not be considered definitive. Current timetables can be found at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/UoCCL/teaching/lectlist/LectList.html
For most of the courses listed below, a list of recommended books is given. These are roughly in order of usefulness, and lecturers have indicated by means of an asterisk those books which are most recommended for purchase by College libraries.
The Computer Laboratory Library aims to keep at least one copy of each of the course texts in ``The Booklocker'' (see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Library/).