Communications of the ACM
Computer Science Department Pauses Entry for New Majors
The computer science department at Boston College has temporarily paused entry of new majors due to the a lack of staff.
Computer science made its first appearance among the college's 10 most popular majors this year. The major has seen an increase of nearly 800 percent over the past 10 years, growing from just 53 students in 2008 to 420 today.
"The gist of the matter is that faculty and students across campus are realizing the power of CS techniques, and they want to get in on these developments," says Sergio Alvarez, chair of the computer science department, cites a surge in interest for both introductory courses and the growing applicability of programming and computer-based skills. Nearly one in four of the school's undergraduate students are double majors.
The CS department has struggled to address the drastic increase in student demand, especially as it loses faculty to retirement, Alvarez says. There is currently an imbalance between the number of majors and the number of computer science faculty, which has lead to ballooning class sizes.
"Our department would need over twice the current number of tenure-track faculty in order to match the median ratio of [tenure-track] faculty to majors among CS departments at private universities in the U.S.," he says.
From The Heights
View Full Article
No entries found