Alastair’s computer science PhD has allowed him to explore further all the subjects that fascinated him as an undergraduate…

Name: Alastair Andrew
Course: PhD in Computer Science
Institution: University of Strathclyde

‘As I was approaching the end of my undergraduate degree I felt that I’d barely scratched the surface of any of the 30 or so classes from the syllabus. Far from feeling like I’d finished my studies I felt that I was just ready to start. I had many lecturers who got you excited about their subjects and I wanted the chance to do that someday.

My PhD in Computer Science entails looking for new techniques to solve large constrained combinatorial problems. I spend most of my time running experiments to  test out ideas, reading about current developments and writing papers for workshops and conferences.

The field itself is very exciting as there are still a lot of large unanswered questions to be tackled, and there is plenty of scope for doing original and innovative work.

I’ve not started writing my thesis yet but it is likely to be about using the structure of constrained problems to aid in their solution. I’m particularly interested in developing techniques that can automatically exploit the interaction between a problem’s constraints and the search exploration to find high quality solutions more efficiently.

My main funding for my course comes from a departmental scholarship, which covers my fees and gives me a stipend to live on. I supplement my income by doing various tasks within the department.

If you are considering a PhD, I would advise that firstly you make sure the topic is something that you are interested in. Speak with your potential supervisor and colleagues and just try to get a good idea what life is like in your department.’
 

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