For my extended essay, which is required to receive an IB diploma, I decided to focus on the subject of Computer Science because that is the subject that actually interests me and I'm hoping to pursue a career in it in the future. I've been thinking about a topic to focus on since the range of Computer Science is so broad, and I decided to ask the programmers here for their opinons.
More info can be found on page 65 of http://www.annapolishigh.org/~ib/documents/EEGuide2009.pdf


The following examples of titles for computer science extended essays are intended as guidance only.
The pairings illustrate that focused topics (indicated by the first title) should be encouraged rather than
broad topics (indicated by the second title).
“Comparison of symbolic algorithmic approach and fuzzy logic in constructing an expert system” is
better than “Artificial Intelligence”.
“Has the increase in processing power diminished the need for complicated sorting algorithms?” is
better than “Sorting algorithms and processor speed”.
“What level of data compression in music files is acceptable to the human ear?” is better than “Data
compression techniques”.
“How secure is Secure Sockets Layer protocol?” is better than “Internet security”.



Does anyone have any suggestion of a topic that would be researchable and would have a practical use in programming/worthwhile to know?

This post has been edited by dk722: 31 May, 2008 - 11:35 PM

(Being a Physics student and guitar player) I'd be interested in the music topic. There are a literal ton of compression (or not in the case of FLAC and APE) types and I'd like to know why, what's best. etc.

I second the music data compression. I'd like to know how it goes no matter what you pick; very interesting topics there.

im in the same postion IB SUCKS BALLLS! (have to write mine this weekend)

most of the computer science essays from out school tend to relate to network weakness' and security. Problem with most essays for computer science is that they are supposed to be dry and technical. so doing a subject thats at least slightly interesting to you is really important.

last year my friend did an essay on BOT NETS (freaking scary)
im doing mine on "the dangers arp tables present to a LAN network"(look it up it'll blow u away
another intersting topic might be .. DOS attacks. or the dangers hackers present to governments.

Indeed, you could write for days on information assurance.

Something like wep security could be pretty good, discussing the dangers of drive buy wep attackers, stealing all your personal information from logging your web activities - including the ssl certificate faking....