Undergraduate Concerns Brought to you by the representatives of: AUWiCSEE, CSUA, HKN, IEEE, UPE, XCF

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Overview Transfer Student Difficulties Upgrading Infrastructure Course Concerns Curriculum

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Transfer Student Difficulties Transfer students feel lost – want more guidance, before and after admission Buddy System Recommendation: designate one EE and one CS professor to advise transfer students

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Upgrading Infrastructure Courseware on Unix Reallocating EE 40 lab Faster Machines

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Infrastructure: Courseware on Unix A machine running Unix can serve 10 students – A Windows machine serves only 1 student Unix software helps ease the space crunch Courses which could do better – CS 160: gcc tools for PDAs – CS 184: bmrt and OpenGL for Unix – CS 186: Postgres or MySQL, instead of Access

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Infrastructure: EE 40 Lab EE 40 lab has very high end equipment EE 40 students don’t need all that power Upper division EE classes could use more equipment Recommendation: move the equipment to the upper division labs and buy cheaper components for EE 40

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Infrastructure: Faster Machines Unix machines in Soda are too slow – under load, machines cannot keep up with typing Need about $50k a year to upgrade Unix lab machines and servers Recommendation: Add a $20 course fee to CS 61 series – every other science class with major infrastructure has a course fee

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Course Concerns Single person projects in lower division We feel a number of classes could be improved – CS 162 – CS 184 – CS 186 – EE 20 – EE 40 and 42 – EE 122

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Course Concerns: Single Person Projects We like single person projects – ensure that all students do the same amount of work CS 61B and CS 61C students who do single person projects are more prepared Recommendation: make all CS 61A projects single person except for the first project

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Course Concerns: CS 162 Nachos project is poorly architected, does not reflect reality Too much work for TAs and professors to support the courseware Solution: a crack team of students is working on designing new courseware – should be ready for Spring 02 – contact for more

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Course Concerns: CS 184 Course is out of step with current trends in computer graphics Recommendation: more time on splines and surfaces, less time on 2D graphics – if students complain about the algebra, enforce the math prerequisite

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Course Concerns: CS 186 Students want more in-depth coverage – “not a design course” Course project framework is broken – Bugs mar the learning experience, frustrate students Recommendation: bring back Prof. Wang’s projects (Spring ’99: 6.6/7.0 HKN rating)

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Course Concerns: EE 20 Inconsistent from semester to semester Disconnect between book and lecture Material not appropriate for freshmen – Math 54 should be a prerequisite Driving students away from EE Recommendation: institute surveys every half semester - works for CS 61C

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Course Concerns: EE 40 and 42 EE students feel unprepared for upper division classes after 40 Recommendations: – less time on IC fabrication – bring back important topics BJTs, op-amps, Bode plots – merge EE 40 and 42

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Course Concerns: EE 122 Inconsistent material and projects Fewer topics, more depth Must have stronger textbook – use Richard Stevens’ texts – industry-standard, used by students today Recommendation: a faculty member needs to take charge of the course

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Curriculum Foreign Language Courses Positive Changes Guaranteed Course Sequences

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Curriculum: Foreign Languages Very difficult for EECS students to become proficient in a foreign language – need to take 20 units per semester to satisfy EECS requirements while learning a foreign language Recommendation: Allow two advanced courses in one foreign language to count towards breadth requirements

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Curriculum: Positive Changes Relaxing L&S CS requirements – makes L&S CS as flexible as EECS TA Track – helps get motivated TAs – doesn’t aggravate class overcrowding

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Curriculum: Guaranteed Course Sequences Overwhelming majority of students think it is a BAD idea Inflexible if student’s interests change Limits student choice of professor – against the spirit of academia Unfairly penalizes students who break the sequence – professors not willing to commit to teaching courses Delays graduation of seniors

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Key Recommendations Institute transfer student pre- and post- admission advising system Implement course fees for lower division lab courses – use funds to improve computing infrastructure Abandon guaranteed course sequences

4/26/2001 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat Authors Galen Hancock – - CSUA Treasurer, undergraduate Joe Jamp – - Peter Loer – - UPE Paolo Soto – - Paul Twohey – - CSUA President, HKN, undergraduate Byron Yu – - HKN Department