Computer Science, BS

Satisfactory/No-Credit (S/NC) Grade Options

Students should check with their academic advisors before deciding to take a course S/NC (formerly the S/N option). Beyond the School’s Regulations for students enrolling in courses with the S/NC grade option, the Department of Computer Science imposes the following rules:

• All computer science courses for the major (core and upper-level courses) must be taken for a letter grade.
• Required mathematics courses may be taken with the S/NC option.

Students should be sure, before deciding on the grading system for a course, that their decision will not have an adverse effect on their plans for a major. They must discuss this decision with their advisor PRIOR to enrolling and selecting the S/NC grade option.

Individual Course Grades

All computer science courses for the major (core and upper-level courses) must be completed with a C grade or better to count for the CS major.  ANY course taken to satisfy a major requirement, including MATH courses required by the major (MATH 0220 , MATH 0230 , and either STAT 1000  or STAT 1151 ), for which only a C- grade or lower is received, must be repeated.  If a grade of C- or lower is earned in a prerequisite course, the course must be repeated before the higher-level course may be taken.

Departmental Honors

Students may graduate with honors if they have also:

• Completed a sixth upper-level elective CS course
• Have a CS GPA of at least 3.5
• Have an overall GPA of at least 3.25

Core Courses

A minimum of 16 credits must be satisfactorily completed in the following five core courses:

• CS 0401 - INTERMEDIATE PROGRAMMING USING JAVA *
• CS 0441 - DISCRETE STRUCTURES FOR CS  
• CS 0445 - DATA STRUCTURES  
• CS 0447 - COMPUTER ORGANIZATION AND ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE  
• CS 0449 - INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMS SOFTWARE  

*Students should have some programming experience (usually acquired in high school) before taking CS 0401 . Any high school course that includes the writing of several Pascal, C++, or Java programs would be sufficient. It is also possible to take one of the department’s service courses, such as CS 0007 , as preparation. Preparatory classes of this nature do not count toward the student’s major requirements.

Required Upper-Level Elective Courses

Nine credits in these three upper-level courses:

• CS 1501 - ALGORITHM IMPLEMENTATION  
• CS 1502 - FORMAL METHODS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE  
• CS 1550 - INTRODUCTION TO OPERATING SYSTEMS  

Upper-Level Elective Courses

Fifteen additional credits in upper-level elective courses (numbered 1000 or higher) must also be completed.

Internships, directed studies, and co-op courses may not be used to satisfy this requirement (see below).

Required Mathematics Courses

A minimum of 12 credits in mathematics must be completed as follows:

• MATH 0220 - ANALYTIC GEOMETRY AND CALCULUS 1  
• MATH 0230 - ANALYTIC GEOMETRY AND CALCULUS 2  

• STAT 1000 - APPLIED STATISTICAL METHODS  

- Or -

• STAT 1100 - STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY FOR BUSINESS MANAGEMENT  

- Or -

• STAT 1151 - INTRODUCTION TO PROBABILITY  

Note: Students should complete their required mathematics courses early. Typically, MATH 0220 - ANALYTIC GEOMETRY AND CALCULUS 1  would be completed in the freshman year. Strong students may elect also to take MATH 1180 - LINEAR ALGEBRA 1 .

Capstone Experience

All Computer Science majors must complete a capstone experience prior to graduation. This experience may be satisfied in several ways including:

• Completion of an approved academic internship (CS 1900 )
• Completion of an approved directed research project (CS 1950 )
• Completion of a capstone designated course (ex: CS 1980 )
• Completion of at least 2 rotations of an approved co-op (ENGR 1093 )

Students are allowed to complete more than one capstone experience but a capstone course may NOT be used in place of a CS Upper-Level Elective course.

Sample Plan of Study

Below is a sample plan for students in the Computer Science Major in the School of Computing and Information. Note that there are many paths through the Computer Science major and any student’s path may differ from the one shown. Generally, our advisors will help each student to customize his / her career plan.

Prior to Admission, this plan assumes that a student has:

• An Intro. to Programming course
• Workshop in Composition. (ENGCMP 0150 ) satisfied by SAT score
• Sufficient Math background to take Calculus 1

Note 1: GER = General Education Requirement, UL = Upper-level

Note 2: Electives may be used for the SCI requirement of a secondary field of study (ex: minor, certificate, etc).

Note 3: One course must satisfy the Diversity Requirement (See the SCI Catalog for details ).

Note 4: CS UL 6 may be used for CS Department Honors  (see above).