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From: jsloan@wright.EDU (John Sloan)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Five-year plan (was What is Computer Science?)
Message-ID: <191@wright.EDU>
Date: Wed, 18-Nov-87 06:48:59 EST
Article-I.D.: wright.191
Posted: Wed Nov 18 06:48:59 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 13:46:24 EST
References: <665@hubcap.UUCP>
Organization: Wright State University, Dayton OH, 45435
Lines: 58

in article <665@hubcap.UUCP>, steve@hubcap.UUCP ("Steve" Stevenson) says:
> in article <3386@ames.arpa>, lamaster@pioneer.arpa (Hugh LaMaster) says:
	:
>> Ten semesters would make it lot easier to fit it all in.
> I agree.  And even when it wasn't stated as a five year program, it
> turned out to be.

This is a good point. Most of the undergraduates in either our computer
science or computer engineering major find our program to effectively
be five years, no matter what our model program says on paper. To make
matters worse, recent (successful) attempts to meet accreditation
guidelines have virtually eliminated any notion of electives from the
undergraduate program. This is a sore point, since my B.S from years ago
came from the same university, and I seem to recall enjoying the
philosophy, creative writing, and physics that I took as electives, and
have found much of what I learned in those courses as (or more) relevant
to my day to day life than the technical stuff. As a CS major I had to
take a lot of CEG-related hardware courses (and the CEG majors have to
take quite a few CS software courses). I think thats a really good idea.
But I gotta admit that wiring up circuits with discrete components was
not particularly useful later in life (VLSI and uCPUs were not around
then).

I think most of us would agree that a five year program is a good idea.
Indeed, professional engineering schools have done it, with success.
Some problems:

[1] Identifying with the policies of a professional engineering school
does not sit well with many CS faculty, who identify mostly with the
disciplines of math and traditional sciences. This caused a bit of a
rift when our Department was moved from the College of Math and Science
to the College of Engineering. Tenure questions are a sticky issue,
since Engineering schools often promote as much (or more) on the basis
of grants and funding than from scholarly research and publication.
Its okay for me, a non tenure track staff member, to say "I think CS
belongs with engineering because their policies regarding curriculum
are more pertinent to us" but for junior faculty members, this is a
real, lasting career altering move.

[2] CS programs that move to a five year program will compete with
CS programs that have a four year program. Can they compete
successfully? Dunno. When my wife went to med school, she attended a
traditional four year school, although she was accepted at a three
year _accelerated_ program. If students perceive the four year schools
to be _accelerated_, than the five year programs can compete. If they
see the five year schools as _protracted_, then the five year programs
are in trouble.

I agree completely. Five year programs are the answer. Its going to take
some cultural adjustment for them to be accepted.

-- John

-- 
John Sloan                     Wright State University Research Center
jsloan@SPOTS.Wright.Edu       3171 Research Blvd., Kettering, OH 45420
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