In reality, they need to put IT/CS/SE be a separate "school" than either engineering or "arts and sciences" (itself probably the most bastardized school) rather than department for various reasons, but there's no budget for that here.
Splitting it away from Electrical Engineering is a terrible idea.
I think the way my alma mater (The University of Queensland) does it is pretty sensible - we have a separate School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) (they also manage CS and SE, as you would expect), which lies within the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology (EAIT).
I went to USU for a year then transferred to WSU and besides WSU's CS program being more robust than USU's (IMO) they were very much in the same direction of teaching you how to program in C/C++ then diving headlong into theory before capping it with an understanding of OS architecture and advanced themes like compiler design and concurrency.
WSU had a BA in CS as well as a BS. The BA was supposed to be for people who wanted a working knowledge of software development but leaving some credits for what was meant to be art classes. It ended up just being for all the lazy kids that kept failing the upper tier classes.
USU had specializations of the CS degree, but it was mostly just choosing your electives for you and making them required.
Perhaps EE should be split off from the college of engineering then as well. We also had CS/EE double majors (which implied a math minor) but there were only a few each year.
The college of engineering had aerospace, biological, chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, naval, nuclear, and then CS and IT. CS and later IT were definitely on a lower rung as far as the school was concerned.
Yes I did. Class of 2000 (okay, '98 originally, but I had to take some time off). *high five*. I assume you're a fellow Brunonian?
Anyway, at Brown, Computer Science got its own department (and building) after being split from Applied Mathematics (which actually wasn't a bad pairing at first, given how much of applied math involves using computation for solving differential equations, chaos theory, etc.). However, while it's not grouped with Electrical Engineering, all computer science majors who are aiming for a Bachelor of Science degree are required to take courses in electrical engineering -- basically digital logic and computer architecture. Even if you're going for a Bachelor of Arts degree, there is still a very basic computer architecture class that all students are required to take. While you use a simulator to lay out your circuits (a highly customized version of diglog), you still had to make a working, but very simple, CPU for one of your projects.
Computer Engineering was introduced as a new major my last semester at school. It basically bridges the gap between Computer Science and Electrical Engineering as sort of combination of hardware and software thing. If it had been offered a couple of years earlier, that probably would've been my own major.
Yes I did. Class of 2000 (okay, '98 originally, but I had to take some time off). *high five*. I assume you're a fellow Brunonian?
Kind of. Class of 07, Studied Math-CS for two years & took time off (rite of passage), then transferred and finished at RISD studying Industrial Design. Been in Providence 9 years now...
Yes I did. Class of 2000 (okay, '98 originally, but I had to take some time off). *high five*. I assume you're a fellow Brunonian?
Kind of. Class of 07, Studied Math-CS for two years & took time off (rite of passage), then transferred and finished at RISD studying Industrial Design. Been in Providence 9 years now...
Gotcha. That's still cool. Hell, my wife went to RISD for Graphic Design.
It's not that I dislike Math or CS.. I love them a lot, actually. But terrible tendonitis gave me the off-time to realize I did not want a career in Math or CS. That said, I think I've made most of my life decisions without any clue.
Oh certainly, but RISD is a mess. If I did it again, I'd probably go for a engineering-design program instead. But hey, I found a fiance in the meantime. *can't complain*
We've hosted some exchange students from Sweden & Denmark. They ask me repeatedly "Is it always this way?!" about things related to 1. US politics 2. checks 3. RISD.
CS: Write a bubble sort. SE: Learn why bubble sorts might be useful in a business application. CE: Design an embedded circuit to do a bubble sort.
AN: Design a network. GDD: Test for collisions. IT: A bunch of different specialtastic shit and support it. RCTVA: Make everything people's minds consume.
Comments
RIT has an entire college dedicated to all of its computer-related degress: GCCIS. IT requires a good deal of real programming.
I think the way my alma mater (The University of Queensland) does it is pretty sensible - we have a separate School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) (they also manage CS and SE, as you would expect), which lies within the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology (EAIT).
WSU had a BA in CS as well as a BS. The BA was supposed to be for people who wanted a working knowledge of software development but leaving some credits for what was meant to be art classes. It ended up just being for all the lazy kids that kept failing the upper tier classes.
USU had specializations of the CS degree, but it was mostly just choosing your electives for you and making them required.
The college of engineering had aerospace, biological, chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, naval, nuclear, and then CS and IT. CS and later IT were definitely on a lower rung as far as the school was concerned.
But hey, at least we became an SEC school.
Anyway, at Brown, Computer Science got its own department (and building) after being split from Applied Mathematics (which actually wasn't a bad pairing at first, given how much of applied math involves using computation for solving differential equations, chaos theory, etc.). However, while it's not grouped with Electrical Engineering, all computer science majors who are aiming for a Bachelor of Science degree are required to take courses in electrical engineering -- basically digital logic and computer architecture. Even if you're going for a Bachelor of Arts degree, there is still a very basic computer architecture class that all students are required to take. While you use a simulator to lay out your circuits (a highly customized version of diglog), you still had to make a working, but very simple, CPU for one of your projects.
Computer Engineering was introduced as a new major my last semester at school. It basically bridges the gap between Computer Science and Electrical Engineering as sort of combination of hardware and software thing. If it had been offered a couple of years earlier, that probably would've been my own major.
SE: Tell someone else to write a sort.
CE: Design an embedded circuit to do a bubble sort.
AN: Design a network.
IT: Everything ever.