Computer science: a proposed alternative track—applied computing

• Authors: Robert D. Cupper
• Venue: SIGCSE '98 Proceedings of the twenty-ninth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
• Year: 1998

A traditional computer science program, in the liberal arts tradition and environment, has been in existence at Allegheny College for many years. The program was designed and adopted in 1979 [6] and the ideas and structure of that program became a substantial contribution to the LACS "Model Curriculum" developed in the early '80s and reported in [12]. In both of these cases, a concerted effort was made to identify and establish just what computer science is and design a curriculum to ensure that its graduates were well grounded in basic concepts and skills, the central core of the discipline, and some advanced or application areas. The Allegheny curriculum underwent minor changes in 1990 in conjunction with the College's adoption of a new base curriculum and calendar. The LACS model curriculum was revisited in the early '90s following publication of ACM's Computing Curricula 1991 [1] resulting in a "Revised Model Curriculum" published in late 1996. [16].All of these efforts were based on the certainty that computer science had "evolved into an important academic discipline with a unique core of knowledge, a set of basic questions and problems, and a distinct method of approach to analysis of those problems." [6], p. 1. The Allegheny and LACS models were specifically designed to fit into and enhance a traditional liberal arts curriculum [7]. To this end, the goals or objectives of these programs were, above all, to provide for a good liberal education in computer science as a discipline. In particular, the programs were designed to ensure that the student obtains a solid academic base for further study or upon which to build a long-term successful career in computing. Specifically, successful completion of a course of study in computer science following these curricular guidelines ought to:1. enable the graduate to understand the capabilities, limitations, and ramifications of computing, the state of the art, and current research and development in computer science and related areas;2. to provide the potential for creative contribution to the art;3. to facilitate adaptation to changes in hardware and/or software technology and to new and changing applications areas;4. to prepare one for further study in computer science at the graduate level; and5. to prepare a student for distinguished professional development in a career in computing, or, in fact, many other areas. [6], p 8.