CSE 3xx Curriculum Revision And Revised Degree Requirements Student Information Session November 200

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CSE 3xx Curriculum RevisionAnd Revised Degree
RequirementsStudent Information
SessionNovember 2009(about 15 minutes of
overview and 45 minutes of questions)
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Why change?

• Its been a long time
• Some courses largely unchanged in 20 years
• Only 3xx requirement change in last 10ish years
  is 303 added and STAT391 as an option
• The field has grown a lot
• Too much to require everything you oughtta know
• So streamline to allow (not require)
  specialization
• Some topics have increased in relative importance
• So modernize to revise our emphasis
• This is common
• Examples Stanford, Cornell, CMU, Univ. Texas,
• Change is difficult and scary, but its time
• No curriculum is ever perfect

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Timeline

• Jan-May 2009 Weekly meetings, emails
• May 2009 Approval in principle
• June 2009 Pizza lunch with students
• Summer 2009 Work on details, degree reqs, etc.
• October 8, 2009 Unanimous faculty approval
• October 20, 2009 College approval
• University approval should happen later this
  quarter
• Spring 2010 4 new courses get taught
• Borriello, Ernst, Grossman, Tompa
• Fall 2010 3-4 more new courses
• Spring 2011 All old courses retired
• Winter 2011 Spring 2013 4xx students with old
  new 3xx

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Who Does What?

• If you take your first 3xx in Then you use the
• Spring 2009 or earlier Old requirements
• Fall 2009 or Winter 2010 Transition requirements
• Spring 2010 or later New requirements
• Focus on the new requirements first because
  theyre simpler
• Transition flexible enough to support old, new,
  or certain hybrids
• Have suggested 3xx course plans for Fall and
  Winter starts
• Documents posted just hit the highlights for now

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The old way
322 Formal Models
321 Discrete Math
341 Programming Languages
326 Data Structures
370 Digital Design
378 Architecture, Assembly
303 C, tools, unix ethics
STAT 390 or 391
EE 215
EE 233
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344 Data Management
331 Sw Design / Impl
332 Programming Abstractions
required
CS CompE software required
CompE required
CompE hardware required
311 Foundations I
341 Programming Languages
312 Foundations II
not required
pre-req
co-req or pre-req
STAT391
351 Hw/Sw Interface
352 Hw Design / Impl
EE 205 Signal Conditioning (or old way)
333 Systems Programming
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Differences, roughly speaking

• Optional 3xx courses taken by most students and
  pre-reqs for appropriate 4xx courses
• Fewer required-of-everyone courses
• 341 and STAT391 optional (but see 331 and 312)
• 333 optional (except HW) more focused/advanced
  than 303
• 370/378 resplit into 351/352 with labs only in
  352, more embedded systems
• 311 does Boolean logic and FSMs (see 321 and 370)
• 312 mostly new use of probability in CSE P vs.
  NP
• 322 more than half removed, rest in 311
• 331 new course on software design/implementation
  correctness, specification, projects, library
  design, etc.
• 332 about 70 of 326 and 30 on parallelism and
  concurrency
• 344 new course managing big data without
  implementing databases

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Missing

• Basic command-line, scripting, and software-tool
  skills
• Looking into adding an optional 1-credit course
• To be determined

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• Now, given the new 3xx, how does that affect
• degree requirements
• Key idea more flexible, but no fewer CSE courses
  total

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Computer Science (Arts Sciences)

• Require 13 more CSE Elective credits (was 20, now
  33)
• 6 fewer required CSE 3xx credits
• 4 from STAT39X
• 3 to fix a prior mistake
• CSE341, CSE344, CSE352, STAT391, etc. are
  Electives
• Still require at least 4 400-level CSE courses
• Require 7 courses, can include a capstone and 3xx
• Simple more flexible, but no fewer CSE credits
  or courses
• Can take more 4xx and sooner, or take more 3xx

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Computer Engineering, part 1

• Goals
• Fit with revised 3xx level
• Fit with ABET requirements
• Extend benefits of trimmed and modernized
  requirements
• Succeeded, but the requirements are much more
  complicated
• They still fit on one sheet of paper (barely)
• Both tracks have 4-5 more free electives than
  before
• (Slightly fewer required CSE/EE courses)
• Means closer to Comp Sci (slightly increased CSE
  credits)

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Computer Engineering, part 2

• STAT requirement becomes an elective to be filled
  with one of
• STAT
• Certain MATH and AMATH courses
• More Natural Science (e.g., BIOL)
• EE205 Signal Conditioning can replace EE215
  (software track) or EE215 and EE233 (hardware
  track)
• Old way still an option
• Nice symmetry between CSE331 (software track) and
  CSE333 (hardware track)
• Complicated electives rules to hit necessary
  minima
• 31 Engineering credits

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Computer Engineering, part 3

• Also need professional responsibility / societal
  implications
• ABET says so
• Its the right thing to do
• Software track 403 and 484 will cover this
• Students must take 1 or both
• Hardware track all hardware capstones will cover
  this

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Transition

• Remember transition only for Fall 2009 and
  Winter 2010 starts
• Have sketched common paths and reasonable
  enrollments
• Advisors will be a big help!
• Getting through the 3xx
• (321 AND 322) OR 311
• 326 OR 332
• STAT390 OR STAT391 OR 312
• (303 AND 370 AND 378) OR
• Comp Sci (331 AND 351)
• CompE Software (331 AND 351 AND 352)
• CompE Hardware (333 AND 351 AND 352)
• Degree requirements are complicated
• Include a little wiggle room compared to old or
  new