Computer Science Curricula

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Computer Science Curricula

• Computer Science Major
• Computer Systems Concentration (CSC)
• Software Engineering Concentration (SEC)
• New for Fall 2005

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Computer Science Curricula

• 128 Credit Hours
• 8 Semester at 16 hours per Semester
• Accredited by ABET CAC
• Top Ranked CS Department in the Chicago Area

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Computer Science Curricula
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CS Humanities Requirements

• Engl 160 - English Composition I (3 hrs)
• Engl 161 - English Composition II (3 hrs)
• 6 hours of Humanities Electives
• 6 hours of Social Science Electives
• 18 hours of Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts
  Electives
• Cultural Diversity Requirement

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CS Science Requirements

• CS Major SEC
• Two course lab science sequence in Biology,
  Chemistry, Physics or Earth Environmental Sci.
• Another course to complete 12 credit hours

• CSO
• General Physics I
• General Physics II
• Circuit Analysis

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Required CS Courses CS Core

• Computing Programming 6 hrs
• Data Structures and Discrete Math 7 hrs
• Computer Architecture 8 hrs
• Languages and Automata 3 hrs
• Operating Systems 4 hrs
• Computer Ethics 2 hrs
• Oral Presentations 1 hr

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CS Technical Electives

• 24 Different Courses
• AI, Vision, Natural Language Processing,
• User Interface Design, Multimedia/Gaming,
• Software Engineering, Distributed Object
  Programming,
• Networking, Architecture, System Design,
  Compilers,
• Object-Oriented Languages, Programming Language
• Design, Database, Networked Operating Systems,
• Graphics, Symbolic Computation, Numerical
  Analysis,
• Computational Geometry, Non-Linear Programming,
• Codes and Cryptography
• Undergraduate Design/Research

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CS First Semester

• CS 101 Intro to Computing (3 hrs)
• MATH 180 Calculus I (5 hrs)
• Humanities/Social Sciences/Arts elective (3 hrs)
• ENGL 160 Composition I (3 hrs)
• ENGR 100 Engineering Orientation (1 hr)
• Total 15 hrs

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CS Advising

• Every student is assigned a faculty member as an
  advisor
• Students must see their advisor every semester
• Currently 10 students or less per advisor
• Students are welcome at the Student Affairs
  Office 905 SEO
• Students are welcome at the Director of
  Undergraduate Studies Office 919 SEO

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CS Transfer Credit

• AP CS Exam Up to 10 credit hours
• In House Placement Exam for CS 101
• Tests knowledge in variables, if statements,
  loops, arrays and function calls
• College Transfers

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Pending Curriculum Items

• Information Technology Concentration
• IT Minor currently approved at Univeristy
  Committee level
• New Area to be accredited by ABET-CAC
• Computer Security Technical Elective

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Questions?

• For more information contact
• Pat Troy at troy_at_uic.edu
• or
• CS Student Office at 905 SEO

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Media Computation

• Media Images, Sounds and Movies
• Focus Learning programming and CS concepts
  within the context of media manipulation and
  creation
• Converting images to grayscale and negatives,
  splicing and reversing sounds, writing programs
  to generate HTML, creating movies out of
  Web-accessed content.
• Computing for communications, not calculation

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Computer Science Challenge

• Were losing students, at an increasing rate.
• Women and minority percentage of enrollment
  dropping
• High failure rates in CS1 (35-50 or more)
• Fewer applications into CS
• All programming jobs going overseas
• Research results Tedious, boring, lacking
  creativity, asocial
• All of this at a time when we recognize the
  critical role of IT in our economy, in all jobs

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Computer Science is more important than Calculus?

• In 1961, Alan Perlis argued that computer science
  is more important in a liberal education than
  calculus
• Explicitly, he argued that all students should
  learn to program.
• Calculus is about rates, and thats important to
  many.
• Computer science is about process, which is
  important to everyone

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Strategy

• Everyone needs computing, and we should be able
  to teach computing that everyone cares about.
• Make computing relevant and accessible to
  students.
• Motivate and engage students.

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Does this motivate and engage students?
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Basic Computer Science Ideas

• Selection (if statements)
• Iteration (loop statements)
• Functions
• Encoding Information

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def clearRed(picture) for pixel in
getPixels(picture) setRed(pixel,0)
def greyscale(picture) for p in
getPixels(picture) rednessgetRed(p)
greennessgetGreen(p) bluenessgetBlue(p)
luminance(rednessbluenessgreenness)/3
setColor(p, makeColor(luminance,luminance,
luminance))
def negative(picture) for px in
getPixels(picture) redgetRed(px)
greengetGreen(px) bluegetBlue(px)
negColormakeColor(255-red,255-green,255-blue)
setColor(px,negColor)
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Background Subtraction Code

• Have a background of a known color
• Some color that wont be on the person you want
  to mask out
• Pure green or pure blue is most often used
• Using a blue bedsheet
• This is how the weather people seem to be in
  front of a maptheyre actually in front of a
  blue sheet.

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Chromakey Coding

• def chromakey(source,bg)
• source should have something in front of
  blue, bg is the
• new background
• for p in getPixels(source)
• Definition of blue
• If the redness greenness lt
  blueness
• if (getRed(p) getGreen(p) lt getBlue(p))
• Then, grab the color at the same spot
  from the new
• background
• setColor(p,getColor(getPixel(bg,getX(p),ge
  tY(p))))

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Chromakey Results
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Creating a Sun Set
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Creating Sepia-toned Prints
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Posterizing and Image
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Data-first Computing

• Real users start with data that they care about,
  then they (unwillingly) learn to use the computer
  to manipulate their data as desired.
• Media Computation works like that.
• Students use media they care about.

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One Students Response

• Is the course
• Relevant?
• Creative?

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One Students Reponce

• Is the course
• Relevant? I dreaded CS, but ALL of the topics
  thus far have been applicable to my future career
  ( personal) plansthere isn't anything I don't
  like about this class!!!
• Creative?

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One Students Response

• Is the course
• Relevant?
• Creative?
• I just wish I had more time to play around with
  that and make neat effects. But JES will be on my
  computer forever, so thats the nice thing about
  this class is that you could go as deep into the
  homework as you wanted. So, Id turn it in and
  then me and my roommate would do more after to
  see what we could do with it.

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Are Students Motivated and Engaged?

• Georgia Tech
• Survey responses
• (Sp03) suggest
• that students
• responded well to
• the context of
• media manipulation
• and creation.

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Media Computation at UIC

• Currently using Media Computation in CS 100
  and CS 101
• CS 100 Non-CS Majors
• CS 101 CS Majors