Yaw Afrifa Asante Amoah, a third-year computer science student, said the programme had challenged his expectations and deepened his appreciation of the role of mathematics in solving computing problems.

Afrifa said he had expected the programme to focus mainly on coding, with students spending most of their time working on computers. His first year, however, introduced him to the mathematical foundations of the discipline.

“I thought it would be mainly coding. But I was in for the surprise of my life when I got into my first lecture and then it was maths we had to study,” he said.

He said mathematics plays an important role in computer science, with students translating real-world problems into mathematical models before writing code to solve them.

“The programme is all about solving problems. It's basically translating a problem from English to maths and then to code,” he said.

Afrifa described the programme as challenging, particularly its mathematical demands, but said solving problems had helped him develop intellectually.

“It's been tough because maths in itself is not something I find fun, but solving problems is a really great avenue to delve deeper into your intellect and then just know more about stuff,” he said.

Afrifa said students do more coding as they progress through the programme. His first year focused largely on mathematics, while his second year introduced more coding, allowing him to apply mathematical concepts through programming.

Now in his third year, he said the greater focus on coding had made learning more exciting.