Tentative Author List:
- Valerie Barr, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, USA
- Carla Brodley, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
- Else Gunter, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA
- Mark Guzdial, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, USA
- Bill Manaris, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA
Scope:
Interdisciplinary computing is gaining in popularity across universities and colleges. Such “CS+X” degrees allow students to study two disciplines without the overhead of a double/dual major which often adds time to degree completion. Interdisciplinary computing degrees address the expanding need for computing knowledge and skills across all disciplines and enable universities to provide more relevant and diverse computing experiences for multi-talented students, who are often forced to select one discipline over another, at great detriment to their personal growth and future professional options/directions. Additionally, they increase student employability because CS+X students tend to be strong in computing and can synthesize computing across other non-computing disciplines (a skill traditional CS students often must develop independently). Indeed, employers can hire students trained in two fields that may both be relevant to the company. And, interdisciplinary computing has been shown to broaden participation in computing, demonstrating that contextualized computing, a problem-solving tool applicable to many fields, helps students see the computing discipline’s value. Studies show that CS+X degrees attract and graduate almost twice as many female students (e.g., 40-50% women) compared to the 17-22% national average in computer science and engineering degrees. Note that this increase is highly dependent on the discipline of the other field and the implementation of interdisciplinary computing. In this paper, we focus on the opportunities and challenges in creating such degrees, as well as general guidelines in how to do so, by drawing on the authors’ experiences creating such degrees within the institutional context of their respective universities.
Contact: Carla Brodley
Version: