Cleaving Computer Science into new degrees — from acm.org by Mark Guzdial

The School of Computer Science (SCS) is focused on the traditional definition of computer science. The School of Interactive Computing (IC) looks at the boundary between the computer and everything else. The School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) focuses on the application of computing for advancing science and engineering.

I find that this cleaving of computer science works well for understanding the tensions I see between groups of computer scientists, each exploring a different piece of our ever-broadening field.

In a recent issue of Communications of the ACM, Dennis Groth and Jeffrey Mackie-Mason argue that we need “informatics” degrees as something separate than a computer science degrees.

There’s another reason to consider new degrees: the tyrannies of a bachelor’s degree, defined in so many contact/credit hours, so many years. Can we fit everything in for all of computing?

We tussle over these degrees and names because, in part, we fear creating a new name. We worry that students won’t be interested in a degree from computing that’s not named “computer science.” IC co-owns our BS in Computational Media External  Link (about 300 students, ~30% female, placing students at places like Electronic Arts and Pixar) and a PhD in Human-Centered Computing External Link (one of the few PhD programs in a computing school that is over 50% female). Students are willing to take a gamble, and we’ll draw on a different demographic of students.