New Program: B.S. in Computer Science and Physics
Title: B.S. in Computer Science and Physics
Proposer Names: Penny Rheingans, John Thompson
Proposal Description:
As computer-based technologies become ever more essential in the physical world, this degree will provide a crucial distinction for those interested in integrating physics and computer science skills to address important societal challenges such as human health, nanomaterials design, and climate change. This major will combine substantive components of computer science and physics into a single integrated degree that will provide students with a firm foundation essential to discovery in computational and experimental physics and their applications, as well as instrumentation design. This combination of skills will be attractive to prospective students and employers alike. The requirements for the Computer Science and Physics major would include existing core courses in each domain, electives chosen to complement the combination, and coursework and a capstone that integrate the two disciplines. This is different than a double major in that the courses from each discipline respond to the needs of the other to create a unified whole. No such program exists elsewhere in UMS.