Our newsroom has a good number of humanities concentrators. Writing for fun? Interviewing strangers? Debating whether split infinitives are egregious grammatical errors or a valid style choice? The job, understandably, holds more appeal for a rising reporter than an aspiring astrophysicist.
But though many of us may prefer to devote the majority of our education to literary or historical pursuits, we're not insular. We go to the SciLi just as frequently as the Rock - and similarly, we recognize just how important a familiarity with ideas of a more scientific nature can be, despite placing some of our academic emphases elsewhere. Brown is a liberal arts institution, and its prototypical student graduates with a broad sampling of academic departments.
The recent trend in the Department of Computer Science - of graduating fewer concentrators and with a greater proportion of those being Sc.B. degrees - is disconcerting given the undue focus on concentrators it would seem to entail. The department's "fad" status seems to have decreased following the dot-com bust earlier this decade, as prospective concentrators see better job prospects in other fields. Meanwhile, students serious about pursuing a job in the field are encouraged strongly to choose the more rigorous Sc.B. option, and with good reason. This trend signifies the evolving culture of the department: an emphasis on concentrators rather than those who would like to dabble in the department. But as the department - established in its own right in 1979 - approaches middle-age, it's ever more important that the skills and training it has to offer remain available to concentrators and non-concentrators alike.
Without the complex technology underlying our computers, we'd have a much harder time bringing you these catchy headlines in our paper - let alone the tips about how early you'd need to get in line for Spring Weekend tickets. And while we have great respect for those magically talented programmers on whose efforts our daily activities depend, we'd doubtlessly use these shining geekboxes more efficiently if we had a better grasp of what was going on behind the computer's desktop.
The most popular classes at Brown speak to students' educational priorities. VISA 0100: "Studio Foundation," TSDA 0220: "Persuasive Communication" and ENGL 0180: "Introduction to Creative Nonfiction" may have broader appeal than CSCI 0190: "Programming with Data Structures and Algorithms." All the same, we'd like to see more computer science courses offered for the non-concentrator. Perhaps there should be a middle ground between the simplicity of such courses as CSCI 0020: "Concepts and Challenges of Computer Science," and the more serious introductions offered in courses like CSCI 0150: "Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming and Computer Science."
We'll readily admit that many of us don't want to learn how to create the next killer operating system. But we'd love to learn about principles of web design and user interfaces without having to first rediscover the theory of computation.
