Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM - Special issue: Soviet computing
Graduate student satisfaction with an online discrete mathematics course
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
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This paper describes a separate, one-year, graduate level program designed primarily for students with a non-computer science baccalaureate degree. The program serves as preparation for our Master's degree in computer science. Programs designed for such students are not unique in the computer science world. For example, Wright State University (in Ohio) had such a program specifically tailored to philosophy graduates, but discontinued it when the funding expired. Such programs are, generically, sometimes called bridging programs; ours is called the Master's Prerequisite Program. On the other hand, many other Universities, such as Villanova and SUNY Buffalo, will on occasion provisionally admit students without an undergraduate computer science degree into their regular Master's program, allowing them to take a course or two before granting full status, subject to performance.The continuing development of the prerequisite program at our university is, we hope, of general interest to those segments of the computer science community most closely associated with CCSC --- small, teaching oriented institutions --- and may prove helpful to anyone contemplating a similar program themselves. We describe the background to the development of the program, the program itself, some aspects of obtaining the needed approval from our University at large, the student demographics, and our assessment of the program's success.