The IT department new concentration of software and design engineering, available for students pursuing a Baccalaureate ès arts Or Bachelor of Science In computer science. This marks the first concentration offered to students who continue the BA.
Before adding, students who pursue the BS had three concentrations to choose – AI and automatic learning, software systems and data science.
The new concentration offers IT majors – the most popular Major at Duke – The opportunity to explore the development and engineering of complex software systems while emphasizing the choice of students on the types of software they wish to design.
In particular, the concentration obliges students to take at least one elective course in “software / design engineering” and “web, application / mobile, engineering / design centered”. Students pursuing a BS are also required to take an elective course in “software systems”.
Concentration share the same prerequisites as concentrations in AI and automatic learning And Software systems.
According to Owen Astachan, associate director of undergraduate studies in the IT department, concentration of software engineering and design “the process” of design and engineering solutions, which differs from other concentrations which tend to focus more on the study of an area before using programming to understand it “to a type of applied level”.
Per Astachan, the concentration also offers students more autonomy. While typical assignments in the concentration of software systems imply that students end the assigned programming projects, “there is much more flexibility in the design of software and engineering concentration to allow the choice of students in the creation of these artifacts.”
Although the concentration is open to BS and BA students, its requirements vary slightly depending on the diploma trajectory. In particular, BA students are not required to take a mathematics course covering multivariable calculation or linear algebra to complete the concentration, while BS students are.
“Some of our BA students want to highlight the design and creativity of what a computer software engineer would do, allowing BA students to do it without doing more mathematics, but still in depth,” said Astachan.
Jian Pei, Arthur S. PESER, a distinguished professor in computer science and president of the department, explained that the new concentration aims to extend IT to serve the wider university community, emphasizing this as a key objective of the placement of the department in the Trinity College of Arts & Multidisciplinary Sciences.
“(Concentration) does not only concern the software itself or science and technology itself, but will also have a fairly fundamental impact on the social sciences, the arts (and) in all areas,” said Pei.
IT majors are not required To choose a concentration, but for students who do it, software engineering and design should be a popular path. Astachan predicted that it will be the second most popular concentration after AI and automatic learning.
“(The demand) CS is now becoming more and more … We would be delighted to seize this opportunity to enrich our program and design different concentrations to offer students opportunities and also connect them with future jobs (and) research areas,” said Pei. “We hope we can continue our success.”
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Dylan Halper is a first year of Trinity and a journalist for the staff of the Department of Nouvelles.