Computer science is an integral part of our lives, shaping virtually all the ways in which we communicate, travel, work, and play. And the computer revolution has just begun – Computer Science is a key enabler for discovery and innovation in most scientific, medical, and social fields of endeavor, making it an incredibly relevant course of study.
NY Times Feb 12, 2019 The Two Codes Your Kids Needs to Know – If you want to be an empowered and adaptive worker or artist or writer or scientist or teacher — and be able to shape the world around you, and not just be shaped by it — you need to know how computers work and how to shape them. With computing, the internet, big data and artificial intelligence now the essential building blocks of almost every industry, any young person who can master the principles and basic coding techniques that drive computers and other devices will be more prepared for nearly every job.
Inside Higher Ed Oct 28, 2019, Should Computer Science Be Required? Many students need computer science to prepare for success later on in the curriculum. Archaeologists write programs to piece together fragments of ancient ruins. Economists apply deep learning models to financial data. Linguists write programs to study statistical properties of literary works. Physicists study computational models of the universe to analyze its origins. Musicians work with synthesized sound. Biologists seek patterns in genomes. Geologists study the evolution of landscapes. Artists work with digital images. The list goes on and on.
Dr. Idit Harel, CEO, Globaloria “Computer programming and computational thinking are the new foundation for our ever-increasing technological society—a society that calls for innovation, entrepreneurship, teamwork, and creative thinking. Reading, writing and arithmetic aren’t enough to succeed in today’s global innovation economy. Computer science is already redefining what it means to be literate and global citizens in the 21st century.”
Hadi Partovi, code.org “What’s fascinating about computer science is that it requires analytical skills, problem solving and creativity, while also being both foundational and vocational.
Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Top 10 Reasons to Major in Computing
From Don’t learn to code. Learn to Think.
Computer science is the study of computation: that is, how to represent and process information. Here are just a few of the concepts you might study:
- Problem solving: you’ll learn algorithms – that is, general strategies, such as divide and conquer, recursion, heuristics, greedy search, and randomized algorithms – that help you model, decompose, and solve any kind of problem.
- Logic: you will start to use precise and formal methods of thinking, including abstraction, boolean logic, number theory, and set theory, so you can solve problems in an air tight manner.
- Data: you will touch information theory and start asking questions like what is information? How do you represent it? How do you model the real world?
- Systems: how do you design and build complex systems that satisfy a set of requirements and constraints? Systems engineering is an essential topic in almost every business.
- Thinking: one of the best ways to understand the human mind is to try to replicate it. Topics like artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing are at the forefront of not only computer science, but also biology, psychology, philosophy, and mathematics