hello and welcome to the computer
science department open virtual house
virtual open house I may say my name is
Yuval Reiss I'm a current student
graduate student here who is part of the
Masters combined master's bachelors
program that the department offers so
I've had the pleasure of being here at
Maryland for quite some time and I'm the
honor of telling you all about our
excellent computer science program so
let's get started so the way it's
organized is we have to associate chairs
for undergraduate studies we have dr.
Mike Hicks and dr. David mount and we
have AP who's our assistant director for
undergraduate studies and then we have
our excellent academic advising staff
who help us succeed during our time here
so before we go any further I think it's
important to ask what is computer
science right because a lot of people
when they think of computer science they
think of programming encoding they think
of maybe building a website or people
who build apps and that's part of it but
that's not all of it computer science is
such a diverse field with many different
areas to study and it really involves
you know the entire process from theory
to design to development application and
what that means is some of the principal
areas of study for our major including
our major are listed below and what that
means is you can take classes pertaining
to any of these subjects join research
labs on campus that have to do with
these subjects get internships also
pertaining to these subjects so very
very diverse field so you may have heard
as of recently the program the computer
science program has become a limited
enrollment program and LEP what that
means is it's just an additional review
process when trying to get into the
major and then there's also some
additional requirements once you're in
the major that you have to meet and
we're going to talk about those right
now
so the gateway requirements so coming in
directly as a freshman any all students
must meet these requirements which is a
c-minus in all in CMS C 131
object-oriented programming
CMAC 132 object-oriented programming -
and in math 140 which is calc 1 yeah and
then so see - and all those three
courses by 45 credits which is usually
you know halfway through the this you
know your sophomore year and in addition
you also must keep a 2.0 which is part
of that requirement so some of the
policies so you really only get to
repeat one of those courses meaning if
you don't do well in one of those
courses you have a chance to repeat it
but that's your only repeat so if you
choose to repeat one course you're gonna
have to successfully complete the other
two courses the first time around any
student who is directly admitted who
does not meet these gateway requirements
will be dismissed from the major and may
not reapply so keep that in mind and
then that 2.0 GPA kind of continues to
be a requirement throughout your time
here so now let's talk about some things
that you could do before you get here I
have to kind of put you at the best
place so for those of you you're taking
AP s writing AP calc AP Computer Science
so for AP calc a B NBC if you get a 4 or
5 you'll get kind of the equivalent
credit and be exempt from the course so
for calc a B if you get 4 or 5 that gets
you out of a calc 1 here at the
University and get you the credit and
calc BC will get you out of both calc 1
and Cal 2 if you get a 4 or 5 so if
you're taking the AP Computer Science
only a 5 will get you the credit and
exempt from CMS C 131 which is as I've
mentioned before kind of the
object-oriented programming one which is
the first course you take in the series
of courses here in the program for those
of you in I be taking idea exams so a 5
6 or 7 and will get you out of calc 1
nice so if you're transferring credits
from a different institution the
department does accept a limited number
of computer science courses I would go
to the link down at the bottom of the
page click that and check if if the
course you're taking at the institution
does transfer in if it does what you'll
have to do in order to get it to count
here is to submit an official transcript
to the office of the registrar and then
they'll be able to kind of process it
and give you the equivalent credit for
that course so exemptions gonna exam so
you have the option to take an exemption
exam meaning let's say if you didn't
take an AP course or if you didn't do so
well on the exam but feel that you're
really you you wouldn't be challenged by
some of the introductory courses you can
take an exam to get exemption from it
what that means is you would be exempt
from the course but you wouldn't get the
credit you wouldn't get you know the
four credits associated with you know
CMS C 131 if you took the 131 exemption
exam but you would you know you would
start off at 132 so each exam can only
be taken once and they must be taken in
order right and they also must be taken
before the first day of classes so you
can't like start classes and then decide
to take the exemption again and they
believe you must have you must a passing
grade is eighty at eighty percent or
above in order to pass
so now let's finally talk about a little
bit about the major and some of the
degree requirements so it's a very CS
I'm sure you've heard is a very rigorous
and math intensive major right you're
gonna have a lot of additional math
course math courses and you also have
additional CS courses that are kind of
like math courses in disguise
because you'll be talking and doing
mainly math within the major we have two
specializations data science and
cybersecurity which we're going to talk
about shortly and those who do not
choose any of those two specializations
are what's considered in the general
tract which is the majority of the
student body at this point regardless of
the specialization all of us you know we
all take seven courses at the 300-400
level which we're gonna talk about in a
bit as well and let's say coming in to
the major and starting off at
object-oriented programming 1c MSE 131
it'll take a minimum of seven semesters
to complete so yeah just about the just
about the four years
cool so some of the lower-level CS
requirements this is kind of what you're
scheduled for the first first few years
will look like in terms of math right we
said it's a very math intensive major so
we have calc 1 calc 2 a 400 level stat
course of your choosing and then a 1
kind of math course in addition to that
those math courses can be linear algebra
differential equations another stat
course a personal recommendation linear
algebra is very very helpful especially
for all the data scientists especially
for all the machine learning and
artificial intelligence people I'm very
important in graphics I took
differential equations I wish it took
linear algebra a little bit but yeah so
that's kind of for on the math side of
things and then for the computer science
program courses we have you know on the
right we have these are all the
lower-level computer science courses we
have 131 and 132 which they're you know
they're kind of the foundational courses
in Java as of now teach you you know all
about object-oriented programming
good coding standards design paradigms
you know you begin to kind of pick up
the language of computer science with
the you know asymptotic complexity data
structures kind of your fundamentals
then you go to C MSC 216 introduction to
computer systems and you take a little
bit a dive kind of into the computer
kind of more low-level meaning you know
you do see you learn all about you know
unique space systems and then you do
some assembly some really kind of
low-level stuff and then we have 250
which is usually taken you know either
with 216 or 130 to 250 is not a coding
class necessarily it's one of those math
courses and disguise that I was talking
about previously combinatorics you know
a little bit of boolean algebra and then
we have 3:30 and 351 3:30 is you know of
course where they kind of chuck a few
programming languages at you and get you
to really be adept at picking up
computer science topics and programming
languages so you're really kind of adept
at you know learning on the fly and
learning new languages quickly which is
very important and 351 is our algorithms
course another math course in disguise
but yeah and below it's kind of the way
you usually pair those courses
throughout your semesters nice so that
was lower level now let's talk about
their upper level coursework so for the
general track you really take you take
four hundred five courses spread out
across three different areas with no
more than three courses in any one area
and then two electives right and so
below are some of the main areas of
study that kind of encompass also kind
of a diverse area you know of things
right so the way this works is through
without throughout these five areas you
can choose your five courses you can't
choose all of them from one area all
right I've said above you can only
choose mx2 right so for instance
I did two courses from
information-processing and two courses
from software engineering and then one
course from systems and then I think my
electives were also from systems and
then information processing numerical
analysis scared me a little bit yeah so
fret for cybersecurity and this is what
your upper level course would look like
you know you'd have you'd be required to
take the three courses kind of on the
table on your left and then you would
choose for from the ones from the
courses on the right so it's kind of
more laid out for you for data science
don't be scared it looks like a lot more
but it's just you have a little bit more
choice flexibility with what you take
but yeah basically it's just a little
bit more structured a little bit more
laid out for you whereas in the general
track you can choose from kind of more a
little bit more of just a diverse set of
classes which also include all of these
and all the ones from cybersecurity nice
so along with your CS courses we're also
expected to do an upper-level
concentration which is something I
really enjoyed so all students are
required to take 12 credits at the 300
400 level in an area outside of computer
science meaning that we we have kind of
a little subspecialty tool to what we're
doing right students take you know and
you can choose from any major or any any
area of study right so I did history for
instance a lot of people do math a lot
of people do you know if you a little
bit more entrepreneurial do kind of
business and all twelve credits must be
obviously in the same disciplines would
be right usually that comes out to like
four or five classes in one in one field
right so usually when you take that many
classes in in one area study you usually
get pretty close to the amount of
credits for a minor or a double major so
yeah I I double or I had a minor in
history and a lot of people have double
majors or
other areas of study which really in the
long term really helps you kind of
differentiate you and makes you a little
bit more appealing as a candidate I
found as well because you really have
that kind of three dimensions to you and
many people decide to take that and kind
of mix it into computer science in a
very interesting way so yeah let's see
upper level concentration nice ok so
here's some additional things about our
about our major and about our program so
labs Institute in the center we are a
research university and you'll you'll
see that quite coming to play very very
strongly right so we have these are all
of our labs right we have virtual
augmented reality bioinformatics
graphics visual on formation
human-computer interaction which I
happen to be a part of cybersecurity
linguistics and information processing
and then the Center for computer science
and engineering and students even as
freshmen are kind of encouraged to join
any of these labs you could switch you
know if you find a different lab more
interesting or you can be in a few
different labs so it's really just a
very very good resource and an amazing
experience taking part in researching
being part of these labs some additional
opportunities for students right we have
lobby days where instead of us going out
for employers we have quite uh no like a
weekly basis employers kind of camp out
in our lobby wrangle set up kind of
booth there with a bunch of swag and
have recruiters and engineers talking to
students about their companies right and
these will be small companies big
companies right we have Facebook Google
they're quite you know every semester
almost and it's just a way for students
to just have closer access to to
recruiters into these companies great
place to hand over a resume and you know
get interview tips then we have Tech
Talks usually so when I usually when a
company comes for a Lobby day they'll be
there in the afternoon and in the
evening will you
Tech Talk where they kind of talk about
the technology they're implementing
things that they're looking for in their
company so anyone interested in that
company and those technologies usually
usually show up and there's always free
food which is great and then the career
fair so the career fair yeah to be
honest I have I got all three of my
internships from the career fair and
multiple job offers so it's it's great
place even you know even if you're not
looking for a job sometimes I go just
just to kind of brush up on I'm kind of
interviewing and you know getting to
know the job market we have tons of
employers and it really a huge like a
very very broad spectrum all the way
from you know government work government
contract work you know private sector we
have small startups who come and we have
you know the big Google Facebook's
Amazon's and really anything in between
and the career fair is only four CS
students right we're one of them made
one of the majors on campus who has like
a career for only for only for our major
which is great and ya said I can't speak
highly enough of the career fair it
fills up the whole you know Xfinity the
Xfinity center which is our best ball
arena which is quite a big place and
then we have sticks right
student-initiated courses which I was
privileged enough to also get to teach
it's basically a course a one credit
course where a student designed
developed and teaches of courses under
the guidance of faculty advisors and
it's really cool because it's a one
credit course where any student can
enroll and sign up for and it's you know
it's not the big commitment of a three
credit course but it gives you a little
bit of a taste of a topic that you may
not have you know learned about
otherwise so I really like sticks I've
taken a few myself and they're just a
really good way of you know dabbling in
different subjects and getting exposed
to different kind of things within
computer science without having to
really invest a whole you know three
credits and and
a lot of work in it and it's also a
really great opportunity as a student to
be able to share knowledge and you
really well you know as teaching you
become a lot more experience in the
subject yourself and then there's a
bunch of student organizations right
technical chose I was also a part of
it's the world's largest all-woman
hackathon that happens at the University
of Maryland every fall we have a bunch
of clubs a bunch of associations techni
big camps none on there which is one of
the largest hackathons in the US but
yeah a lot of opportunities for students
in CS so why um d for computer science
if you haven't been convinced up till
now so it's a top-ranked program
currently worth tied with Harvard up
they're a large department with many
opportunities a lot of them I've already
mentioned faculty with diverse research
interests interests a lot of research
opportunities which I mentioned very
active student organization which is why
I came here
and then many internships and employment
opportunities for students being so
close to DC is also a very big advantage
for that and advisors who care about
student success which is I guess a big
part of our success as well so that's
University Maryland computer science in
a nutshell I hope this was informative
and hope to see you around campus next
semester
