Undergraduate Concerns

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

2. Overview • Project Partners • COE Curriculum • Course Concerns • Upgrading Computing Infrastructure Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

3. Project Partners: Single Person Projects • We like single person projects • ensures 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 lower division projects single person except for the first 61A project Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

4. Project Partners: Dispute Resolution • Bad project partners ruin a course • Partner dispute resolution varies by class • Recommendation: • no fault divorce available after every project • standardize point distribution system • standardize partner dispute resolution Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

5. Project Partners: Point Distribution and Dispute Resolution • Student anonymously submits evaluations of their partners • a project is worth X points, distributed among all students involved • graders use evaluations to distribute the points • If there is a dispute (or wide discrepancy) among the project partners the grader can use CVS and interviews • we expect this to be rare Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

6. COE Curriculum • Problems • Recommendations Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

7. COE Curriculum: Problems • Many interesting humanities classes are not on any of the approved lists • 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 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

8. COE Curriculum: Recommendations • Replace the subject lists with humanities “areas” • M areas (one being foreign languages) • six credits required • up to two credits in the same area • Change at the college level is hard, but we believe this is important Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

9. Course Concerns: Overview • Positive trends • Negative trends • Specific classes • e190 • ee40/42 • ee122 • cs162 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

10. Course Concerns: Positive Trends • More class infrastructure has moved to using Unix • New cs150 lab is amazing • Anonymous feedback for some courses • all courses should have this • ee20 is a more cohesive course • cs186 is moving away from miniBase Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

11. Course Concerns: Negative Trends • Some course graders are too slow • all assignments submitted before the drop deadline should be graded • Assignments should be debugged prior to release • sample solutions should work before assignment released • cs186 still uses miniBase • replace miniBase with a better designed coding assignment • ee20 overlaps with ee120 and the ee120 presentation is more comprehensible Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

12. Course Concerns: e190 • Currently the goals of the course are unclear • students feel unprepared for academia and business • hard to pass out of the course • e190 instructors do not understand technical concepts • e190 only covers communicating to a non-technical audience Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

13. e190: Recommendations • Standardize the course goals, students should be able to: • present to technical and non-technical audiences • edit other’s work • write a memo • write a paper • Students who demonstrate these skills should be able to pass out of e190 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

14. e190: Recommendations • Change the e190 curriculum or create cs190 • chemistry department has ChemE 185 • e190 as a course is not important, but the skills it teaches are: • rigorous enforcement of the required skills • make course pass / not pass • provide a clear path for students to pass out of e190 Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

15. Course Concerns: EE 40 and 42 • EE students feel unprepared for upper division classes after 40 • CS students feel EE 42 spends too much time on analog design • Recommendations: • eliminate EE 42 • teach rudimentary circuit design • spend less time on IC fabrication and more time on other subjects Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

16. Course Concerns: EE 122 • Inconsistent material and projects • Incomplete assignments • the sample solution did not work! • Recommendations • a faculty member needs to take charge of the course • the course should move from EE to CS Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

17. 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 03 • contact babylon@csua for more details Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

18. Course Concerns: The Average Case • Our concerns do not reflect the typical EECS class • Most classes are well conceived and proceed with minimal friction • example: cs164 • We understand that we will work hard, but that we will learn much from our labors Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

19. Upgrading Infrastructure • Courseware on Unix • Faster Machines Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

20. 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 are much better now than a year ago • CS 160 could do better by providing gcc tools for PDAs Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

21. Infrastructure: Faster Machines • Unix machines are too slow • under load, machines cannot keep up with typing • matlab often unusable • 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 • cannot rely on donations to upgrade machines • three year upgrade cycle needed Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

22. Key Recommendations • Introduce no-fault divorce for project partners • Change e190 • Rework COE humanities requirements • Implement course fees for lower division lab courses • use funds to improve computing infrastructure Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

23. Authors • Galen Hancock – galen@csua - CSUA Treasurer, undergraduate TA • Jack Sampson - jsampson@csua - CSUA, HKN officer, undergraduate TA • Paul Twohey – twohey@csua - CSUA President, HKN, undergraduate TA Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

24. Questions • What happened to the TA track? Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002

25. Five Year Masters • Desired by advanced undergraduates • want a taste of grad school before committing five (or more) years to school • Very selective program • applicants go through grad application process equivalent • apply after six or seven semesters • research required Undergraduate Concerns - Faculty Retreat 2002