Report on Undergraduate Forum of Feb. 13, 2006

The CSE Undergraduate Studies Committee (UGSC) organized the annual undergraduate forum on Feb. 13, '06 in DL 266. The forum started at about 6:00 pm and continued till about 8:00 pm, with most students staying on till near the end. The summary below tries to describe the main points that were made during the discussions but it defintely does not capture the enthusiasm of the participants.

A special aspect of this year's forum was the presence of two alums of the department. The two alums are Molly Meeks, a long-ago graduate of the BS-CIS program, currently with the College of Math and Physical Sciences at OSU; and Mary Tanner, a BS-CSE grad (2003), currently with Mettler Toledo. Mary gave a summary of what she sees as the most important skills needed in today's workplace and how students can best prepare for the job market. Molly talked about the services provided the Career Services offices (of both Engineering as well as ASC).

Students:

Alan Delong, CIS sophomore;

Jim Dinan, (grad student and) Open Source Club;

Nima Falahi, CIS junior;

Aaron Fleischer, CSE junior;

Daniel Galron, CIS senior;

Mark Geise, CSE sophomore;

Ray Gerard, CSE junior;

Andy Lathrop, CSE senior;

Alex Lingo, Pre-CIS and Open Source Club;

Carol Mckee, CSE junior and ACM-W;

Anthony Nedolast, CSE senior and NTSig;

Jennifer Rajadhyaksha, CSE sophomore;

Farhad Salehi, CIS senior;

Nicholas Sedden, CSE senior;

Stephen Subleski, ECE (planning to transfer to CSE) senior ;

Brent Warren, CSE junior;

David Weinberg, CSE junior;

Alums:

Molly Meeks, BS-CIS alum;

Mary Tanner, BS-CSE alum (2003);

Faculty: Paolo Bucci, Rajiv Ramnath, Neelam Soundarajan, Al Stutz, Bruce Weide, Xiaodong Zhang (dept. chair).

Advising Office: Peg Steele, Nikki Strader, Shuang Liang.

Staff: Tamera Cramer (Tamera and Peg took care of the pizza and pop; thanks!)

1. Xiaodong Zhang presented his vision for the department and the importance of our undergraduate programs in that vision. He stressed three points:
   • The dot-com boom is over but that doesn't mean the CS field is going downhill. Indeed, during the boom days the field was crowded with people who were in it just for the quick buck. Now is the time for the field to mature and for people in the field to focus on ideas that are both conceptually as well as practically important.
   • The fear of off-shoring of CS jobs certainly has some grounding in reality but at the same time, many of the most interesting jobs are very much staying in the US. Plus, the internationalization of CS itself can lead to more interesting and challenging projects.
   • There seems to be a belief that CS is not as "real" a science as fields such as physics or biology. But that is not true at all. Many deep and foundational problems in CS remain to be addressed for those who want to tackle them either as part of undergrad research or in graduate programs or beyond.

2. Changes in CIS and CSE programs: Neelam summarized recent changes in the undergraduate programs:
   • Individualized option: There is a new technical elective option, the individualized option, available to both BS-CIS and BS-CSE students. The option allows a student to tailor, in close consultation with the faculty advisor, his or her technical electives to pursue specific interests that may not fall under any of the existing tech elective options. No specific courses are required (other than that a specified minimum number of the hours in the option must consist of elective CSE courses). Full details are available at the undergraduate program web pages.
   • Changes in the BS-CSE program: Starting Au '05, students in the BS-CSE program are required to take Comm 321, a five credit hour course on public speaking, and either Econ 200 or Econ 201. Both of these are counted as part of the 45 hours of general education credits in the program. Both of these changes were based on input from various constituents stressing the importance of communication skills and an understanding of basic business/economic issues. Note that these changes do not increase the number of credit hours for the program.
   • Information and Computation Assurance option: Another change that is in the pipeline (and is expected to receive final approval shortly) is the introduction of a new tech elective option for both BS-CSE and BS-CIS programs. This option allows students to focus on security-related issues. For details, please see the minutes of the Nov. 2, 2005 meeting of the Undergraduate Studies Committee (http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~neelam/ugsc/minutes/0506index.html#nov2).
   • Enrollment trends, GPA for admission to the CIS/CSE majors: The demand for both the CIS and CSE majors have --as in other universities across the country-- moderated considerably from their peaks a few years ago. Therefore, we have been discussing eliminating the GPA requirement for admission to these majors; this means any student who has completed the prerequisite courses and is in good standing will be eligible for admission to the CIS/CSE majors. The Undergraduate Studies Committee has approved this change. It is expected to be considered by the full faculty of the department shortly.

3. Changes in courses/new courses: Bruce summarized recent changes in various courses, as well as the introduction of a number of new courses:
   • 459.51, Perl programming: This course has been offered before but only recently received a permanent number. The course is expected to be offered in the Spring quarter of each year.
   • H680, Honors version of CSE 680: A new honors version of this course is being developed and will be offered for the first time in Sp '06. Students with a serious interest in conceptual foundations are urged to take this course in place of the regular 680.
   • H625, Honors version of CSE 625: A new honors version of this course is in the early stages of development and is expected to be offered for the first time in Sp '07. Again students with a serious interest in conceptual foundations should consider taking this course in place of the regular 625.
   • The following four courses which are in various stages of development and implementation will be of interest to students who want to specialize in AI; any of these courses may be used by both CIS and CSE majors as tech electives:
     • 634, Computer vision for human-computer interaction (Au).
     • 732, Computational Linguistics (originally planned for Sp '06 but may be postponed to Sp '07).
     • 735, Pattern Recognition (Sp08!)
     • 794L, Foundations of Spoken Language Processing (Wi)
   • 788L14, Advanced game programming: This is a new course to be offered in Sp '06; whether it will become a permanent course will be decided later.
   • The following two courses are important for students interested in security-related issues:
     • 551, Introduction to Information Security (Wi);
     • 651: Network Security (Sp; for Sp '06, the course is listed as 694K).
   • The following courses will be of interest to students interested in software engineering:
     • 767, Applied Use-Case-Driven Object-Oriented Design for Engineers and Scientists (Sp07);
     • 794R, Applied Enterprise Distributed Computing for Engineers and Scientists (Sp06);
     • 794J, Applied Enterprise IT Architectures (Au06)
   • 674, Introduction to data mining (Sp).
   There was some discussion of possible additional courses. One that was mentioned was a 459 course on Python. Depending on faculty interests and availability, such a course may be developed. It was also noted that a couple of years ago, two undergraduates took the initiative to create and teach (under supervision of a faculty advisor who was ultimately responsible for the course including grades, etc.) a 459 course on C#.

   There was also some discussion of getting undergraduates involved in research. One suggestion was the introduction of a "current topics" course that would explore some possible research problems that might be accessible to undergraduates. This could be an undergraduate version of the current CSE 885 course for graduate students. Alternately, maybe undergraduates might be made aware of the CSE 885 presentations so they can attend any they find interesting. One resource that does provide useful information about this topic is on the SCE web pages: http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~weide/sce/now/projects.html. This page lists links to various research projects that might be of interest to undergrads. Note, in particular, the Europa forum.

4. Accreditation evaluation of BS-CSE program: Neelam summarized the (preliminary) results of the recent accreditation evaluation of the BS-CSE program.
   • The accreditation team was very impressed with the quality of the program and of the students in the program.
   • The team was very impressed with the computing and other (such as library) facilities available to students and faculty.
   • The team felt that the program needs to do some additional "direct assessment" of the degree to which program outcomes are achieved. The team felt that we were making excellent use of the results of existing assessment mechanisms to improve the program but felt that the assessment could be improved by introducing some additional mechanisms for direct assessment of student of achievement program outcomes.
   • The final accreditation results are expected to be received sometime in the summer.
   Based on the team's recommendations, the Undergraduate Studies Committee has explored ways of performing additional direct assessments. One important mechanism we have introduced based on these discussions is a brief "exit test" that BS-CSE majors take near their graduation. The test is intended to assess the program and the performance of individual students in the test does not become part of their record; indeed, no information is collected that would allow us to link inidividual students to particular exit test papers. Full details on the exit test as well as the other changes we have made, especially in the capstone courses, are available at: http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~neelam/abet/DIRASSMNT/index.html.

   One other change that is being considered in the BS-CSE program is to revise the statement of program outcomes so that it closely matches the outcomes required by the accreditation criteria. Our current set of outcomes includes the ones required by the criteria but because the terminology used is different, it seems to cause confusion for the accreditation evaluators. Revising the outcomes as proposed will avoid this. But it should be stressed that the philosophy behind the program is not being changed in any way. The question only concerns the official outcomes associated with the program to avoid any potential confusion for the accreditation evaluators. For full details, please see the minutes of the Undergraduate Studies Committee meetings of Jan 24 and 31 at: http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~neelam/ugsc/minutes/0506index.html. Please send any comments to neelam@cse

   There was a question as to why the BS-CIS program was not accredited (by the Computing Accreditation Commission). The answer was that, typically, CS programs in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences in most big universities are not accredited. Programs in the Colleges of Engineering tend to be accredited (because accreditation is an essential requirement for many engineering disciplines such as civil engineering).

5. Career services, internships, etc.:
   • Any student who is a BS-CIS major or a BS-CSE major can use the services of both the Engineering Career Services (ECS) office as well as the ASC Career Services office. The ECS office is located in 191 Hitchcock Hall (url: http://career.eng.ohio-state.edu/). The ASC Career Services office is located in 050 Brown Hall (url: http://career.asc.ohio-state.edu/)
   • Molly Meeks of the MPS Office is working to coordinate efforts between the two career services offices to best help both CSE and CIS majors.
   • Internships are extremely important and can provide valuable experience that can considerably strengthen your resume when looking for permanent post-graduation employment.
   • Interviewing workshops: During the last year, ECS offered its interviewing workshop twice in our courses. On both occasions, Rosemary Hill, the director of ECS conducted the workshop. The first time was in a lecture in CSE 758; the second time was in a lecture in CSE 757. Students who have taken these workshops have found them valuable and we plan to continue them in the future. We will also try to find a way to ensure that students who may not be enrolled in the particular course but would benefit from the workshop have an opportunity to attend the workshop. Thanks to Rosemary for being willing to do this.
   • It was suggested that similar "internships workshops" might be useful if offered as part of earlier courses in the program, for e.g., in CSE 321. We will look into this possibility.

6. Trends in the job market/workplace: Mary Tanner gave a summary of her experiences as a recent CSE graduate who has been working in Mettler Toledo for the last couple of years:
   • The increasing level of globablization means that cultural awareness becomes increasingly important. Students should consider taking foreign language courses (Mary regretted that she had not done so when she was in the program).
   • Communication skills are extremely important. Thus the addition of Comm 321 as part of the BS-CSE program is a very positive step. We will try to explore the possibility of adding it also to the BS-CIS program (without increasing the number of credit hours in the program).
   • Business/economic knowledge can be extremely valuable. Here again the addition of Econ 200/201 to the BS-CSE program is a positive step (and we will try to add this to the BS-CIS program as well). Perhaps even more useful would be for students to do the Business minor.
   • Most companies will expect employees to perform in a variety of positions and jobs. Mary is or has been involved with database work, product managment, marketing, ...
   • Perhaps most important: internship experience. Employers are very keen on new employees coming with some amount of work experience.

7. Student organizations: Daniel Galron (who is one of the student reps on the Undergraduate Studies Committee) led a discussion on student organizations. The Open Source Club has been very active during the last couple of quarters; the hope is that this will continue. Similarly, the NTSig group is also very active, and again the hope is that this will continue. ACM-W is also very active. Another student organization that has been reasonably active is the UPE honor society. In all of these cases, specific individual students have been mainly responsible for infusing vigor into the organizations. There was some discussion about how to ensure that the organizations don't become dormant once these particular students graduate. While it would indeed be worthwhile to encourage more junior students to participate so that they can take the lead when the current leaders graduate, ultimately the success of student organizations will depend on the initiative of individual students. But the department should try to build a culture of student activity and involvement.

8. Student activity and involvement: Some ideas were proposed to help build such a culture:
   • Student lounge / commons: A student lounge has been suggested in many past forums. Maybe this will be the year we will actually get one! (Several years ago, we were told that no rooms in university buildings could be specifically designated as undergrad lounges; since then, several new buildings on campus, for example, the new Physics building, have included such lounges. So it seems high time that we provided a lounge for our undergrads as well.)
   • 24-hour lab access: This too has been mentioned in past forums. Perhaps a small lab with key card access (but not necessarily including any staffing) could be set up.
   • Common office area for student organizations: Ideally, the lounge should be close to this common office area; but the office area should be separately lockable.
   • Up-to-date and well maintained web pages that provide details about activities that will be of interest to students and containing links to the student organizations.

9. Some interesting upcoming events:
   • UPE trivia bowl;
   • Alumni event in April;
   • See the calendar link in the dept. home page for links to upcoming events including talks by visitors.