Report on Undergraduate Forum of March 5, 2013

The CSE Undergraduate Studies Committee (UGSC) organized the annual undergraduate forum on March 5, 2013 in DL 369. The forum started at about 5:30 pm and continued till about 7:00 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. The summary is based on notes made by Dr. Jeremy Morris; many thanks to Jeremy for taking detailed notes!

Students:

Zach Wein, sophomore

Brandon Mills, sophomore

Max Roseman, sophomore

Xiaoting Li, junior

Marwan Alnakhaleh,

Zongzhe Xie, freshman

Jason Fatzinger, senior

Nate Stewart, freshman

Johns Gresham, freshman

Thanh Trinh, freshman

Jason Sustar, junior

Jessica Gillespie, freshman

Jesse Kenny, sophomore

Glen Gainer, junior

Faculty: Matt Boggus, Paolo Bucci, Eric Fosler-Lussier, Jeremy Morris, Rajiv Ramnath, Paul Sivilotti, Neelam Soundarajan, Bruce Weide

Advising staff: Mary Jo Deerwester, Chelsea Norris, Nikki Strader

Systems staff: Michael Compton, Dave Kneisly

1. Everyone in the room briefly introduced themselves.

2. The major topic of discussion concerned the courses under semesters. The following are some points that were mentioned:
   1. Junior project course (390x): CSE 560, the junior project course under quarters, has been replaced by a number of courses with students having to take one of them. Currently, there are three such courses, CSE 3901, 3902, and 3903. 3901 concerns web services; 3902 concerns user interfaces; and 3903 concerns, as did 560, system software (assemblers, simulators etc.). Each course is designed to include a demanding team project in which students go through a fairly intense design/ implementation/ testing/ documentation activity. Students who have taken 3901 reported that it requires about 5/6 hours per week of outside class work. The reports about the 390x courses thus far have been very positive. Students especially seem to like learning about and using practical new technologies and tools, complementing the more conceptual focus of other courses. The focus of all courses is on methods for ensuring good software design and development; project management plays an important role in all three courses.

   2. Capstone courses: In switching from quarters to semesters, CSE 758 and 762, the capstone courses on software engineering and operating systems (more precisely, web services and the like), were merged into a single course, CSE 5911, Capstone design: Software applications. Other capstone design courses were converted fairly directly from their quarter versions; CSE 682, 731, 772, 786 became 5913 (Computer Animation), 5914 (Knowledge-based systems), 5915 (Information systems), and 5912 (Game design and development), respectively. CSE 778, VLSI design, was dropped since very few CSE majors were taking the course. All of these courses with the possible exception of 5913 are expected to be offered at least once a year; the status of 5913, with the retirement of Rick Parent, is less clear.
      In 5911, each team chooses a project from a collection offered by the instructor. These projects come from actual clients/sponsors. Each team works closely with the sponsor, ensuring that the system design and implementaiton meet the sponsor's requirements. Students seem to enjoy the close interaction with the sponsors.
      One issue with the capstone courses relates to students who graduate in the summer. No capstone course is being offered during Summer '13 (since not many students asked for one when a survey was sent out in November/ December). But several students at the forum seemed to think it would be useful to have at least one capstone available during the summer and Rajiv Ramnath who serves as the overall coordinator for the capstone courses seemed to feel it should be possible to offer at least some of the courses in a seven-week term (assuming that students do not have many other obligations, especially many other courses that they have to work on). So we will try to offer a section of 5911 in future summers.

   3. Evening/night sections: There was a question about evening/night offerings of CSE courses to allow working students to complete the program. We do offer many --but not all-- of the CSE courses in the evening/night. This is especially true for the more popular courses. It would be difficult to do this for all courses but we will continue to offer as many as possible in the evening/nights.

   4. One confusing aspect of the switch to semesters is the multiple summer terms. There is a 7-week long term that starts in early June; there is a 12-week term that starts immediately following the end of the Spring semester; and there is a 3-week "Maymester" term that starts immediately following the end of the Spring semester. Students should consult the Registrar's website for exact dates. This document provides some answers to questions about fees etc.

      Most CSE courses that are offered in the summer will be in the "regular" 7-week term; CSE 2501 and some of the 1-cr language courses (425x) will be offered in the 3-week term; 2221 and 2231 will be offered in the 12-week (full summer) term. Depending on the experience during Summer '13, we may make changes in future years.

   5. Split courses? There was a suggestion that we should consider the possibility of splitting some courses. One natural candidate would be CSE 2451 (Systems I); it could be split into a 7-week course that focuses on low-level C programming; and a second 7-week course that concerns assembly programming, etc. CSE 2321 (Foundations I) may similarly be split into a 7-week course on logic and another on basic algorithms. We will consider such possibilities after we get some more experience with the semester system.

3. Structure of programs under semesters:
   1. Core choices: Under quarters, all students were required to take a number of core courses on such topics as formal languages and automata theory, programming languages, numerical methods, databases, architecture, etc. In the move to semesters, two of these courses, the ones on algorithms and operating systems, became Foundations II and Systems II. Most of the remaining courses (and a few additional ones, on graphics, AI, and networking) were grouped into four pairs, with students having to take one course from each pair, these being the "core choices". Students could also take both courses in a given pair, with the second course counting as a tech elective. In addition to these core choices, students also have to complete 15 hours of tech electives (at least 8 of which must be CSE courses).
      There was a question as to why this was done. The main reason was to ensure that our graduates will have reasonable breadth in CS. At the same time, the tech elective hours allow for specialization.

   2. Tech elective options: A related change was that students did not have to pick a specific tech elective option as they had to under quarters. Instead, they could choose any appropriate set of courses (hopefully in consultation with their faculty advisors) as their tech elective courses. One effect of this is that the student's transcript will no longer have a notation (such as "Software systems", "Information systems", etc.) as it used to under quarters. In effect, every student is on what used to be called the "individualized option" under quarters. Part of the reason this was done was the increasing popularity of the individualized option under quarters. At the same time, having clearly defined tech elective options provided useful guidance to students interested in specific areas. In order to continue providing similar guidance, we have developed a set of focus areas; students should see this page for details. Students are not required to pick a focus area. They have been developed mainly to provide guidance to students who might need it.

4. Facilities: There was a brief discussion of the computing facilities. One comment was about the fact that business students use the CSE labs. These students are allowed to use the labs only during those terms when they are taking a CSE course. Their CSE account lasts only for the duration of that term. The same is true also for other non-CSE students who are registered in a CSE course in a particular term. But, in general, it is true that the number of students, both CIS/CSE majors and pre-majors and others taking CSE courses and hence using the CSE labs, is increasing rapidly with the inevitable result that the labs are getting increasingly crowded. It is not clear we will get additional resources to improve the situation; but we do continue to try.
   One question was whether it would be possible to provide remote desktop so that students do not have to be physically in the labs. This may be a possibility but it does require a lot of computing and networking resources. As a general guideline, the system staff tries to coordinate with course instructors to make sure that the facilities are properly matched to the needs of the courses.
   Another suggestion was the possibility of moving to the cloud, perhaps using a service such as that provided by Amazon for educational use. While this may be a possibility, there may be concerns related to FERPA that have to be considered.
   There is a lounge for CIS and CSE majors in DL 174 and it contains a number of machines. Students' BuckId should open the door to the lounge. (It was noted that the lounge is only for majors, not pre-majors.)

5. Jobs/internships: The job market for recent CSE and CIS graduates seems to be excellent. Students reported receiving multiple job offers from top companies. An important website for students exploring job opportunities or looking for internships is: Buckeye Careers; see also: Career Connection. Both CIS and CSE majors should be able to search for computing jobs and internships at the Buckeye Careers site.