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This page serves as a reference to my notes, whilst studying for an MEng Computer Science with Cyber Security at the University of Southampton. These notes have evolved over the years, and many modules I took have either no notes at all, or partially complete notes.

My note-taking style has also adapted throughout the years, initially with a heavy focus on brevity, then towards \(\LaTeX\), and now using MkDocs. Some of my notes are also supplemented with various Anki decks, but again these vary in quality and quantity for differing modules.

I find the current style is good for me, as I find I learn better when writing in a somewhat conversational, yet technical documentation-like way, hopefully explaining concepts reasonably well and providing additional details where I feel that either the lectures aren't clear or the concept itself is quite interesting.

In terms of the notes themselves, I've listed modules I have taken in reverse chronological order below.

Notes Index

4th Year

Semester 2, 2024

My views on these modules at a high level

This semester is the final one at Southampton and probably the last time I'll be in a formal education (unless I do a PhD down the line). As such, I've picked quite a mathsy module to complement the rest of the modules required for accreditation by the NCSC.

Biometrics has the potential to be quite a fun module, and is also quite mathematical, but the slides so far aren't in my preferred teaching style, and the course jumps around a lot, which makes it hard to get a good idea of what content we should know for the exam.

The simulations modelling module also has the potential to be quite a fun module, but the coursework for the module is very unguided and I'm often left struggling to understand what I need to do for it. It's possible that a different module, such as Digital Forensics, or Computational Finance might've been more interesting.

Software security is a good module that's reasonably well organised for Southampton's standards, and both the coursework and the labs are interesting and engaging.

The cryptography module is also good fun and is interesting. The coursework was enjoyable and the teaching style on this module is also good.

Semester 1, 2024

My views on these modules at a high level

This was certainly the most relaxed semester of the entire degree, given that it was very self directed in terms of the GDP, and the other module was quite an easy learn by rote module.

My GDP focused on jamming the DJI Mini 2 drone using some wireless equipment, and we were supervised by Dr Denis Nicole. The project was interesting and taught me lots about the electronics engineering and reverse engineering aspects of the industry, and it was good to work with a couple of electrical engineers to see how their course differed in the skills that it taught.

The other module was relatively boring, and essentially covered high level managerial techniques for managing a project lifecycle, and reiterated some security basics. It did, however, introduce a few new concepts such as threat modelling, which as yet we hadn't been taught.

3rd Year

Whole Year

  • COMP3200: Part III Individual Project

Semester 2, 2023

Semester 1, 2022

  • COMP3215: Real-Time Computing and Embedded Systems
  • COMP3219: Engineering Management and Law
  • COMP3226: Web and Cloud Based Security

2nd Year

Semester 2, 2022

  • COMP2207: Distributed Systems and Networks
  • COMP2211: Software Engineering Group Project
  • COMP2215: Computer Systems II
  • COMP2216: Principles of Cyber Security

Semester 1, 2021

  • COMP2208: Intelligent Systems
  • COMP2209: Programming III
  • COMP2210: Theory of Computing
  • COMP2213: Interaction Design

1st Year

Semester 2, 2021

  • COMP1201: Algorithmics
  • COMP1204: Data Management
  • COMP1206: Programming 2
  • COMP1216: Software Modelling and Design

Semester 1, 2020

  • COMP1202: Programming I
  • COMP1203: Computer Systems I
  • COMP1205: Professional Development
  • COMP1215: Foundations of Computer Science