Computer Science Classes

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course familiarizes students with the fundamental data structures in computer science. Using the Java programming language, students will study existing data structure implementations, implement their own data structures, and develop data-intensive applications. The course covers stacks, queues, lists, trees, heaps, hash tables, graphs, and the common algorithms that use these data structures. Students will also receive an introduction to basic complexity analysis (Big-O), learn the time complexity of different data structure operations, and gain experience in calculating the time complexity of programs that use data structures. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course familiarizes students with the fundamental data structures in computer science. Using the Java programming language, students will study existing data structure implementations, implement their own data structures, and develop data-intensive applications. The course covers stacks, queues, lists, trees, heaps, hash tables, graphs, and the common algorithms that use these data structures. Students will also receive an introduction to basic complexity analysis (Big-O), learn the time complexity of different data structure operations, and gain experience in calculating the time complexity of programs that use data structures. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This second course in the data science curriculum emphasizes advanced data wrangling and manipulation, interactive visualization, writing functions, working with data in databases, version control, and data ethics. Through open-ended and interdisciplinary projects, students practice the constant feedback loop of asking questions of the data, manipulating the data to help answer the question, and then returning to more questions. Prerequisite(s): STAT 112 and COMP 123 and STAT 155; STAT 253 recommended but not required.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course offers an in-depth introduction to the design and analysis of algorithms. Students will work with algorithms in pseudocode, and will learn formal and informal methods for analyzing algorithm efficiency and correctness. Topics may include recursion, divide and conquer, dynamic programming, greedy methods, branch and bound, randomized, probabilistic, and parallel algorithms. Application areas include string processing, graphs, geometric problems, and optimization. This course will introduce computability topics including regular expressions, grammars and parsing, automata, nondeterminism, and NP completeness. Prerequisite(s): COMP 128 (or COMP 124, if previously taken) and MATH 279, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course offers an in-depth introduction to the design and analysis of algorithms. Students will work with algorithms in pseudocode, and will learn formal and informal methods for analyzing algorithm efficiency and correctness. Topics may include recursion, divide and conquer, dynamic programming, greedy methods, branch and bound, randomized, probabilistic, and parallel algorithms. Application areas include string processing, graphs, geometric problems, and optimization. This course will introduce computability topics including regular expressions, grammars and parsing, automata, nondeterminism, and NP completeness. Prerequisite(s): COMP 128 (or COMP 124, if previously taken) and MATH 279, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the problem of building software with humans and for humans. Students work in teams to design and implement a semester-long user-facing software project of their own invention. There are no limitations on topic or technology; on the contrary, students are responsible for imagining possibilities, articulating goals, and researching and selecting suitable technologies. The format resembles a studio art class, with in-class discussion guided by sharing and critiquing classmates' ongoing work. Topics include communication, division of labor, user-centered design, human-computer interaction, product management, project management, iterative development, engineering tradeoffs, separation of concerns, code readability and maintainability, refactoring, testing, and version control. Teams give a public demonstration of their working projects at the end of the semester. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 (COMP 128 recommended), or COMP 124 if previously taken, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the problem of building software with humans and for humans. Students work in teams to design and implement a semester-long user-facing software project of their own invention. There are no limitations on topic or technology; on the contrary, students are responsible for imagining possibilities, articulating goals, and researching and selecting suitable technologies. The format resembles a studio art class, with in-class discussion guided by sharing and critiquing classmates' ongoing work. Topics include communication, division of labor, user-centered design, human-computer interaction, product management, project management, iterative development, engineering tradeoffs, separation of concerns, code readability and maintainability, refactoring, testing, and version control. Teams give a public demonstration of their working projects at the end of the semester. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 (COMP 128 recommended), or COMP 124 if previously taken, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to how computer systems work, including how a computer represents data, how code is compiled into instructions for the CPU, and how memory is organized. Students will learn to use the C programming language and assembly language. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to how computer systems work, including how a computer represents data, how code is compiled into instructions for the CPU, and how memory is organized. Students will learn to use the C programming language and assembly language. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course will introduce students to the design, implementation, and analysis of databases stored in database management systems (DBMS). Topics include implementation-neutral data modeling, database design, database implementation, and data analysis using relational algebra and SQL. Students will generate data models based on real-world problems, and implement a database in a state-of-the-art DBMS. Students will master complex data analysis by learning to first design database queries and then implement them in a database query language such as SQL. Advanced topics include objects in databases, indexing for improved performance, distributed databases, and data warehouses. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127  or permission of instructor

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course will introduce students to the design, implementation, and analysis of databases stored in database management systems (DBMS). Topics include implementation-neutral data modeling, database design, database implementation, and data analysis using relational algebra and SQL. Students will generate data models based on real-world problems, and implement a database in a state-of-the-art DBMS. Students will master complex data analysis by learning to first design database queries and then implement them in a database query language such as SQL. Advanced topics include objects in databases, indexing for improved performance, distributed databases, and data warehouses. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127  or permission of instructor

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course examines the theoretical foundations of computation. It explores different mathematical models that try to formalize our informal notion of an algorithm. Models include finite automata, regular expressions, grammars, and Turing machines. The course also discusses ideas about what can and cannot be computed. In addition, the course explores the basics of complexity theory, examining broad categories of problems and their algorithms, and their efficiency. The focus is on the question of P versus NP, and the NP-complete set. Prerequisite(s): (COMP 128 or COMP 221 or COMP 124 if previously taken) and MATH 279, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

From doors we can't figure out how to open to websites we can't figure out how to navigate, we've all encountered counter-intuitive designs. So how do we create design systems that inspire joy instead of frustration? And how do we ensure that we design for everyone, including people who may be very different from ourselves? This course will teach techniques to improve our design of user interfaces, by centering the human in the design process. It will provide an introduction to the field of human-computer interaction and the design and evaluation of user interfaces. Students will learn methods for designing and prototyping interactive systems and some of the principles of creating good design based on human cognition. The class will be a mix of lectures, in-class activities and design critiques. The central focus of the course is a group project, in which students will formulate a design problem, explore potential design opportunities and tradeoffs, and iteratively evaluate and improve upon a digital prototype of their design. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

A mix of applied linear algebra and numerical analysis, this course covers a central point of contact between mathematics and computer science. Many of the computational techniques important in science, commerce, and statistics are based on concepts from linear algebra, such as subspaces, projections, and matrix decompositions. The course reviews these concepts, adopts them to large scales, and applies them in the core techniques of scientific computing. These include solving systems of linear and nonlinear equations, approximation and statistical function estimation, optimization, interpolation, eigenvalue and singular value decompositions, and compression. Applications throughout the natural sciences, social sciences, statistics, and computer science. Prerequisite(s): MATH 236 and one of: COMP 120 or COMP 123 or COMP 127 or COMP 128.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

A mix of applied linear algebra and numerical analysis, this course covers a central point of contact between mathematics and computer science. Many of the computational techniques important in science, commerce, and statistics are based on concepts from linear algebra, such as subspaces, projections, and matrix decompositions. The course reviews these concepts, adopts them to large scales, and applies them in the core techniques of scientific computing. These include solving systems of linear and nonlinear equations, approximation and statistical function estimation, optimization, interpolation, eigenvalue and singular value decompositions, and compression. Applications throughout the natural sciences, social sciences, statistics, and computer science. Prerequisite(s): MATH 236 and one of: COMP 120 or COMP 123 or COMP 127 or COMP 128.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course examines the language of social media through the lens of computational linguistics and natural language processing (NLP) techniques. Key topics include language variation within online communities, hate speech detection, misinformation identification, topic modeling, and the fairness and trustworthiness of language models. Designed for students interested in computational linguistics, NLP, and computational social science, this course emphasizes engagement with recent academic papers on social media language analysis. Students will critically discuss these papers and gain hands-on experience replicating their methodologies using Python libraries. By the end of the course, students will be expected to develop their own research project focused on studying social media language. Proficiency in Python programming is required for this course. Prerequisite(s): LING 100 or LING 104 or LING 200 or LING 205 or COMP 123 or permission of the instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course introduces technologies for building dynamic web applications. It will look at all stages in the web application design process, including: 1) the basic protocols and technologies underlying the web (e.g. HTTP, REST), 2) front-end web technologies, such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript, 3) and application servers that manage requests for information, update data, etc. The course will be programming-intensive, with students using web frameworks to design and implement Internet applications. The format of the course will be mainly laboratory-based sessions, where students learn components of a web application, supported by lectures and discussions. Students will research particular topics and present their findings during these discussion sessions. The course will also investigate the usability of designs from a human factors standpoint and discuss privacy and other social consequences of this technology. This course counts as the capstone. Prerequisite(s): COMP 225 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course will investigate the theory and practice of computer graphics programming using C++ and OpenGL. Through hands-on projects, supported by lecture and discussion, you will learn the fundamentals of creating interactive 2D and 3D images with applications in art, design, games, movies, science, and medicine. Topics covered will include event loops, polygonal models, rendering techniques, texturing, lighting, interaction techniques, and virtual reality. This course counts as the capstone. Prerequisite(s): COMP 240; Linear Algebra recommended but not required.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course familiarizes students with the fundamental data structures in computer science. Using the Java programming language, students will study existing data structure implementations, implement their own data structures, and develop data-intensive applications. The course covers stacks, queues, lists, trees, heaps, hash tables, graphs, and the common algorithms that use these data structures. Students will also receive an introduction to basic complexity analysis (Big-O), learn the time complexity of different data structure operations, and gain experience in calculating the time complexity of programs that use data structures. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course familiarizes students with the fundamental data structures in computer science. Using the Java programming language, students will study existing data structure implementations, implement their own data structures, and develop data-intensive applications. The course covers stacks, queues, lists, trees, heaps, hash tables, graphs, and the common algorithms that use these data structures. Students will also receive an introduction to basic complexity analysis (Big-O), learn the time complexity of different data structure operations, and gain experience in calculating the time complexity of programs that use data structures. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course will introduce practical skills for carrying out linguistic research with computational methods. Students will learn to work with corpus software, regular expressions, computational tools, and large language models for processing and analyzing language data. The course will also introduce how to do the data annotation and dataset construction. By the end, students will be familiar with the workflow of conducting projects with computational methods and will develop their own research proposal. While prior knowledge of linguistics or computational methods is helpful, it is not required.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The sudden recent rise of artificial intelligence (AI), most prominently but not only ChatGPT, will have deep political, economic, and cultural effects. It may also constitute a revolution in the relations of humans to knowledge and to the world. In this experimental course, we will think about, and with, AI in a global frame. After asking “what is AI?”, we will explore AI topics including but not limited to carbon footprint, dataset feedback loops, human agency displacement, cognitive surrender, hallucination, human trainer trauma, state power, corporate power, autonomous digital power, autonomous warfare, AI and the professions, AI and international politics, AI in its cinematic and literary representations, and speculations on existential risk. Rather than keep AI at a distance during the course, we’ll work with it: carefully, skeptically, critically, together. But in some weeks, we’ll avoid screens completely.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course, students will learn the basics of programming in Python. At the same time, they will explore image processing and computer vision techniques to solve a variety of computer vision problems, including motion and object tracking, hand, body, and face detection, image classification, object detection, and image generation. At the same time, students will examine ethical and social issues pertaining to computer vision methods, including privacy and surveillance, algorithmic bias, crowdsourcing and data ownership. This course is suitable for students with no prior programming experience, who wish an introduction to computer science. It may serve as an alternative to Comp 123. Students with previous CS experience who are interested to learn more about image processing and computer vision are also welcome.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This second course in the data science curriculum emphasizes advanced data wrangling and manipulation, interactive visualization, writing functions, working with data in databases, version control, and data ethics. Through open-ended and interdisciplinary projects, students practice the constant feedback loop of asking questions of the data, manipulating the data to help answer the question, and then returning to more questions. Prerequisite(s): STAT 112 and COMP 123 and STAT 155; STAT 253 recommended but not required.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course offers an in-depth introduction to the design and analysis of algorithms. Students will work with algorithms in pseudocode, and will learn formal and informal methods for analyzing algorithm efficiency and correctness. Topics may include recursion, divide and conquer, dynamic programming, greedy methods, branch and bound, randomized, probabilistic, and parallel algorithms. Application areas include string processing, graphs, geometric problems, and optimization. This course will introduce computability topics including regular expressions, grammars and parsing, automata, nondeterminism, and NP completeness. Prerequisite(s): COMP 128 (or COMP 124, if previously taken) and MATH 279, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the problem of building software with humans and for humans. Students work in teams to design and implement a semester-long user-facing software project of their own invention. There are no limitations on topic or technology; on the contrary, students are responsible for imagining possibilities, articulating goals, and researching and selecting suitable technologies. The format resembles a studio art class, with in-class discussion guided by sharing and critiquing classmates' ongoing work. Topics include communication, division of labor, user-centered design, human-computer interaction, product management, project management, iterative development, engineering tradeoffs, separation of concerns, code readability and maintainability, refactoring, testing, and version control. Teams give a public demonstration of their working projects at the end of the semester. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 (COMP 128 recommended), or COMP 124 if previously taken, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the problem of building software with humans and for humans. Students work in teams to design and implement a semester-long user-facing software project of their own invention. There are no limitations on topic or technology; on the contrary, students are responsible for imagining possibilities, articulating goals, and researching and selecting suitable technologies. The format resembles a studio art class, with in-class discussion guided by sharing and critiquing classmates' ongoing work. Topics include communication, division of labor, user-centered design, human-computer interaction, product management, project management, iterative development, engineering tradeoffs, separation of concerns, code readability and maintainability, refactoring, testing, and version control. Teams give a public demonstration of their working projects at the end of the semester. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 (COMP 128 recommended), or COMP 124 if previously taken, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to how computer systems work, including how a computer represents data, how code is compiled into instructions for the CPU, and how memory is organized. Students will learn to use the C programming language and assembly language. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This interdisciplnary course will examine selected topics in computational biology, including basic bioinformatics, algorithms used in genomics and genome analysis, computational techniques for systems biology, and synthetic biology. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123; BIOL 190 recommended

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

In this capstone course, we will study techniques and algorithms for visualization design and analysis. We will cover topics such as visualization of multivariate, temporal, text-based, spatial, hierarchical, and network/graph-based data to clearly and effectively convey information graphically. Our discussions will revolve around principles of graphic design, perceptual psychology, and cognitive science. Students will have the opportunity to complete several programming assignments and data analysis tasks. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Many current computational challenges, such as Internet search, protein folding, and data mining require the use of multiple processes running in parallel, whether on a single multiprocessor machine (parallel processing) or on multiple machines connected together on a network (distributed processing). The type of processing required to solve such problems in adequate amounts of time involves dividing the program and/or problem space into parts that can run simultaneously on many processors. In this course we will explore the various computer architectures used for this purpose and the issues involved with programming parallel solutions in such environments. Students will examine several types of problems that can benefit from parallel or distributed solutions and develop their own solutions for them. This course counts as the capstone. Prerequisite(s): COMP 240 and COMP 221, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This third course in the data science curriculum is a capstone course that emphasizes team-based learning through open-ended data science projects. Working with a team throughout the course of the semester you will take on an interdisciplinary in-depth data science project and gain experience in developing and refining research questions, identifying and wrangling datasets, and clearly presenting results and conclusions. Mini-lectures by the instructor, guest speakers, and students will present advanced topics that supplement and support team-based learning. Counts as a capstone course for the Computer Science major and the Data Science major. Prerequisite(s): COMP 212 and STAT 253

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introduction to the basic principles and techniques of artificial intelligence. Topics will include specific AI techniques, a range of application areas, and connections between AI and other areas of study (i.e., philosophy, psychology). Techniques may include heuristic search, automated reasoning, machine learning, deliberative planning and behavior-based agent control. Application areas include robotics, games, knowledge representation, and natural language processing. This course involves programming in Python; students should have a basic familiarity with Python or be prepared to learn Python during the course. This course counts as the capstone. Prerequisite(s): COMP 221, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens once software is in the hands of users? What is the difference between meeting a one-time software project milestone and creating a sustainable software endeavor? What does it mean to be a good steward of software? This course picks up where Comp 225 (Software Design & Development) leaves off. While 225 focuses on designing and building software, this course focuses on deploying, releasing, and maintaining software. We will take final projects from 225 and release them to the public, learning from the problems that creates. Unlike 225, students may move between teams and/or work with multiple teams. Every student will work on at least one unfamiliar codebase they did not originally help create. Coursework will consist of software project work, reading assignments, and class discussions. LIkely topics include: product management, engineering tradeoffs, regression testing, code health, architecture, security, team member onboarding, user support, monitoring and metrics, systems thinking, ethics, and unintended consequences. This is a capstone course.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Computational and discrete geometry is the study of geometric objects and algorithms for problems involving geometric input and output. It originally developed as a generalization of the study of algorithms for sorting and searching in 1-dimensional space to problems involving multi-dimensional inputs. Topics will likely include: polygons and polyhedra, convex hulls, Voronoi diagrams, triangulations, medial axis, linear optimization, search algorithms, and configuration spaces. This is a course in both theoretical and computational mathematics. Students will understand and apply definitions, work out examples both by hand and using a computer, investigate algorithms, and apply the tools learned in the class to a variety of applications. Coursework will involve problem sets, at least one exam (likely take-home), and a final project that includes a paper and presentation. An exploration of research articles and relevant literature will be a component of the course as well.

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Course Materials