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Some universities rank those that are majoring in CS higher up in the registration chain, than those taking it for elective, those that are minoring in CS and t

by tyler- 8y ago

Some universities rank those that are majoring in CS higher up in the registration chain, than those taking it for elective, those that are minoring in CS and those that are returning back to school. This means multitudes of students face difficulty in getting into their 100 & 200-level courses. At my school it isn't uncommon to have three sections of 300 students each in the 101 class and 300+ people vying for limited seats in the 200-level class. One of the sophomore level classes expanded their seats to nearly 500 people, but that doesn't solve the problem of getting into the upper division courses that are capped at 150 people. Schools are leaving out a large population of students registering for these courses, which may include first generation students, women and minorities. Even the 100-level courses can nearly be impossible to register for at this point.

flyingpenguin 8y ago
There is also a factor with lag in budgeting. When I first started computer science at my school it was a smaller department (maybe 2-3 intro cources of 50 people). When I was a JR, my department didn't have the budget to put out a off schedule OS course. The budget was consumed by 13 intro courses. As I was graduating, my program not only had 10-13 intro courses but had 4x as many electives as it had when I started.
- tyler- 8y ago
  Budgeting is an issue with my school as well. Our school is understaffed and has been opening up positions for new faculty hiring, including hiring teaching only positions (where they hire PhDs for such positions, with renewal contracts). I've also heard of the idea of charging a departmental fee to become a CS major, similar to the idea that certain engineering departments have such fees. The idea here is that this fee would go towards the department but allow the student access to things like hacker spaces and or other resources that everyone else in the school would be presumably excluded from. A lot of things are trying to be figured out to address this issue.

by tyler- 8y ago

flyingpenguin 8y ago

There is also a factor with lag in budgeting. When I first started computer science at my school it was a smaller department (maybe 2-3 intro cources of 50 people). When I was a JR, my department didn't have the budget to put out a off schedule OS course. The budget was consumed by 13 intro courses. As I was graduating, my program not only had 10-13 intro courses but had 4x as many electives as it had when I started.

tyler- 8y ago
Budgeting is an issue with my school as well. Our school is understaffed and has been opening up positions for new faculty hiring, including hiring teaching only positions (where they hire PhDs for such positions, with renewal contracts). I've also heard of the idea of charging a departmental fee to become a CS major, similar to the idea that certain engineering departments have such fees. The idea here is that this fee would go towards the department but allow the student access to things like hacker spaces and or other resources that everyone else in the school would be presumably excluded from. A lot of things are trying to be figured out to address this issue.