Report on Undergraduate Forum of March 24, 2016

The CSE Undergraduate Studies Committee (UGSC) organized the annual undergraduate forum on March 24, 2016 in CL 120. 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 Paolo Bucci and Jeremy Morris; many thanks to both for taking detailed notes.

Students:

Glen Gainer, senior

Reid Fu, junior

John Feerick, junior

Zach Schuller, senior

Michael Abbott, junior

Sandeep Battula, senior

Anshu Kumar, sophomore

William Conlon, sophomore

Erik Thiem, senior

Max Buck, senior

Michael Schulz, senior

Evan Danish, senior

Lucas Miller, senior

Shadman Sakib, sophomore

Kevin Freeman, freshman

Sean Zhang, freshman

Dalton Flanagan, junior

Winnie Li, junior

Haonan Wang, freshman

Yihand Du, sophomore

Sam Litowitz, senior

Faculty: Matthew Boggus, Paolo Bucci, Doreen Close, Michael Green, Wayne Heym, Jeremy Morris, Neelam Soundarajan, Paolo Sivilotti, Radu Teodorescu, Annatala Wolf, Xiaodong Zhang.

Advising staff: Leslie Dowler, Nikki Strader, CA Wade

Systems staff: Pat Jacobs

1. Neelam briefly welcomed everyone to the forum, explained the purpose of the forum, and explained the activities of the Undergrad Studies Committee. Following that, everyone in the room introduced themselves.

2. Neelam talked briefly about the continuing popularity of CSE and CIS and how this (severely) impacts enrollment in classes as well as admission to the majors.

3. Changes to undergrad programs: Neelam summarized three sets of changes that have been made recently:
   • Changes in ECE course requirements: Until recently CSE majors had to take ECE 2000, 2100 (4 credit hours each); CIS majors had to take ECE 2000 (4 cr hrs). Following feedback from a number of students (see last year's forum report and discussion in UGSC), these were modified as follows:
     require CIS majors to take ECE 2060 in place of ECE 2000;
     require CSE majors to take ECE 2020 and 2060 in place of ECE 2000, 2100;
     and move the extra hours (1 cr hr in the case of the CIS program and 2 in the case of the CSE program) to the tech elective requirements.
     Another change, also based on feedback from students related to CSE 2501 and the ethics course requirement CSE majors. All Engineering majors are required to take an ethics course, one of these being Phil 1337; CIS majors are not required to take an ethics course but many take 1337 as a GE (Cultures and Ideas course). But, given that the topic of 1337 is ethical issues related to computing, there is considerable overlap with CSE 2501. However, Phil 1337 does not require any oral presentations by students and the writing component is not as strong as in CSE 2501. To address this, we worked with the Philosophy Dept. to have them develop Phil 1338, a 4-credit version of 1337, which will include these missing components. Phil 1338 has now been offered and seems to have been well received by CSE majors. We are also working with the Philosophy Dept. to develop an appropriate rubric for use in 1338. With the introduction of 1338, CSE and CIS majors who take that course will not be required to take CSE 2501; and students who are considering taking 1337 will be advised to, instead, take 1338.
     Students at the forum approved of both changes. With respect to the ECE courses, a couple of specific comments were made:
     a. ECE 2060 is still very fast-paced.
     b. The labs seem very accelerated.
     c. The first lab seemed rather strange but the rest were okay.
     Neelam will pass on the comments to ECE.

   • Comment from Advising Office: Leslie noted that the introduction of the specialization (tech elective) options is simply a formalization of the previous "focus areas"; the advantage of the formalization is that it appears on the students' transcripts and allows employers and others to easily identify students/grads who may be suited to their particular needs. Students can change their specialization option at any time; indeed, since the options are very flexible, a set of courses that meet the requirements of one option may also meet (or come close to meeting) the requirements of another option.
     On a different note, students planning to graduate soon should complete the graduation application in a timely manner.

4. Comment from a student: How about a career services office for just CS students?
   Nikki responded that we tried to do this at one time but were overruled. It was also noted that there are various other issues, such as turf questions, the requirement of special certification to be a career counselor etc., that prevent a departmental career services office.

5. Suggestion from a student: How about an online bulletin board for items of interest to undergrad students, instead of sending out tons of email that get lost? For example, posts about startup career fairs that the Business Builders Club hosts or various hackathons etc. would be suitable candidates for posting on such a bulletin board.
   Nikki and Leslie agreed this would be a good idea and we will try to work on it.
   On a tangential note, some students noted that participation in events such as hackathons brought excitement to classes after the event. Moreover, many employers look for evidence of such participation in future employees. It is also worth noting that there are numerous start-ups in the Central Ohio area and students should consider those opportunities as well.

6. Comment from a student: The standardization in Software I, II seems really helpful. Such standardization is missing in Fnds I, II, and in Systems I, II.
   Neelam agreed that this was a good point and will bring it up to the appropriate faculty. Doreen Close noted that standardization might be especially important for Fnds I and Sys I since Fnds II and Sys II build directly on those courses. A number of students felt that this was much more the case with Fnds I/II (than with Sys I/II) so standardization is really important for Fnds I. We will discuss this in the Curriculum Committee and see if we can find a sensible way to address this.

7. A student suggested that Apple development environment should be available for student use. Pat Jacobs noted that the Macs in CL 112 are specifically for use by a capstone class; to expand to other courses, faculty should make appropriate requests. The Systems Committee (chair: Jim Davis, jwdavis@cse) would be a good place to bring up such questions, suggestions, etc.

8. A student asked about grader positions and who was in charge of it.
   Anna noted that, at least for SW I, II, recommendations from recent instructors count for a lot. Paolo suggested that students considering grading position should not do it for the money but rather because they want to help other students. It is also a true learning experience since looking at material from a course that the grader completed a while ago through the eyes of other students currently taking the course really helps solidify the grader's grasp of that material and related material. A student suggested that it is a bit intimidating to apply for a grading position and that recruiting would help ... there seem to be a general feeling that the grading situation should be improved although it was not clear what the most effective approaches might be. One suggestion was to prominently advertise the need for graders for specific courses on the undergrad web site. We will discuss this in the Undergrad Studies Committee.