INGREDIENTS OF A CSE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
Max Gunzburger
Department of Scientific Computing
Florida State University
Stipulation
• There are two kinds of computational scientists and engineers
– there are those that are primarily interested in advancing a science
or engineering discipline through computations (instead of theory
or experiments)
– there are those that want to develop new computational tools for
advancing one or more science or engineering disciplines
• The first type should be trained in a traditional science or
engineering program
• I am going to talk about the training of the second kind
Questions
• Is CSE
– part of traditional discipline?
– a multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary endeavor?
– a separate discipline?
WHAT’S OUT THERE?
Types of “computational science” degree programs
• Pseudo
– single traditional department offerings disguised as computational science
– are OK for those that are mostly interested in a traditional discipline but
want to do it computationally
– at best, only lip service paid to interdisciplinary training
• Multi-departmental
– several departments jointly offer the degree
– control (admissions, TA slots, etc.) usually belongs to the departments
• Single unit but “interdisciplinary”
– offered by an interdisciplinary center, institute, etc.
or even by a non-traditional department
– control sometimes belongs to the offering unit
Components of “computational science” Ph.D. degree programs
• Courses
• Exams
• Committees
• Dissertations
• Internships
Courses
• Scenario 1: students take the great majority of courses from
a single department
– perhaps as few as only 2 semesters’ worth of courses in
another discipline
– often, even those courses are closely related to a student’s
main discipline
- math students take 2 computer science courses
- computer science students take 2 statistics courses
- physics students take 2 chemistry courses
• Scenario 2: students choose courses from lists of existing courses from several
departments
– it is difficult for students to stray too far from their backgrounds
- lack of prerequisites for advanced courses
- lack of credit given for undergraduate courses
- fear of the unknown
– it is difficult for students to acquire broad knowledge
- too may courses needed to do so
• Scenario 3: a combination of
– several courses especially designed for the program
- these are shortcuts to knowledge in several disciplines,
e.g., math and cs
- cannot have the same depth as a several courses in several disciplines
plus
– courses from traditional departments
- again, students tend to not stray too far from their backgrounds
Exams
• Often, first-level qualifying exams are not too different from what else goes
on in the offering department(s)
– perhaps one CSE-related exam area replaces a standard exam area
• In some cases, these exams are a combination of exams given by traditional
departments
– choices are made based on courses taken
• In some cases, these exams are truly different from those given in traditional
departmental programs
– they are specially designed to broadly represent CSE
• More innovation takes place in second-level or specialty exams
– sometimes based on advanced course(s)
– sometimes based on preliminary research plus background material
– sometimes, but perhaps not often, have an interdisciplinary flavor
Committees
• Most universities require that at least one member of the dissertation
committee come from outside the program
– this is as far as come CSE programs go
• Some CSE programs go further
– they require significant multidisciplinary representation on the committee
– they allow for, but do not usually require, multidisciplinary co-advisors
Dissertations
• Many CSE programs avow that dissertations are supposed to have
an interdisciplinary flavor
• Often, however, dissertations are a reflection of the advisor and have
a mono-disciplinary flavor
Internships
• Many CSE programs list internships as a feature of their program,
though few actually require them
– this is because internships for CSE students are few and far between
• Few CSE programs have formal agreements with industrial, commercial,
or laboratory organizations for providing internships for their students
– engineering programs routinely have such agreements
– selling CSE internships to industry is not easy,
but more of it should be done
• CSE internships more often happen through personal contacts between
individual faculty members and personnel in host institutions
– e.g., joint grants with lab scientists often result in internships
• Internships are valuable for CSE students
– source of good problems, even some “real-life” ones
– access to high-performance computing resources
– broadening of research experience
– see how life is in non-academic environments
– helps define career options
– can lead to a postdoc or more
– get away from their advisor for a while
• Internships are also valuable to the host institution
– probably best way to interface and collaborate with university researchers
– extensive evaluation of potential future employees
– allows host scientists to participate in advising students
– cheap labor
WHAT SHOULD BE OUT THERE?
or
WHAT SHOULD A CSE PH.D. PROGRAM LOOK LIKE?
• It is important to recognize that there exist barriers to CSE degree programs
– curiously,
and
Pope Gregory the Great
in the 6th century
already knew about these barriers
Dante Alighieri
in the 14th century
1. Sloth
2. Greed
3. Wrath
4. Gluttony
5. Envy
6. Pride
7. Lust
SLOTH
• On the whole, faculty and especially administrators are not willing to do the
hard work needed to overcome the inertia inherent in current programatic
and departmental structures
• This is accompanied by a lack of will power to do what is right and proper
GREED
• Bean counting is a huge impediment to establishing interdisciplinary degree
programs
• Departments are very defensive of their credit hours
• Departments believe that they will lose students from their traditional degree
programs to a new CSE degree program
• Sharing resources for the common good is an unknown concept in academia
WRATH
• Departmental administrators and others are often wary of CSE degree programs because they believe that those leading such efforts are engaging in
empire building
• Weaker departments (and even some strong ones) are resentful of any successes an interdisciplinary degree program has, especially if they think that
success is coming at their expense
GLUTTONY
• Administrators, especially department chairs and deans, are often only interested in sating their parochial desires, and not in the good of the university
as a whole
• Of course, any resource left available is immediately gobbled up by whomever
is given access to it, regardless of the consequences
ENVY
• Success in getting resources, both internal and external to the university,
leads to jealousy by other university units
• Faculty who are not participants in a CSE degree program who think they
should be are jealous of their “rich” colleagues in the program
PRIDE
• Engineering administrators are reluctant to allow anyone to give out a degree
with the word “engineering” in its title if they do not have total control of
the program
• Some mathematicians will look down their noses at any program having
mathematical content but that is not a mathematics program; analogously,
some scientists feel the same way with respect to their “traditional” degree
programs
• Departments are often very reluctant to give up on archaic qualifying exam,
curricular, and other requirements of their degree programs that they believe
are necessary to certify a student as being a bona fide mathematician, or
physicist, or whatever may apply
LUST
•
• To design a CSE program, one first has to ask:
what collective knowledge is needed to solve science or
engineering problems on a computer?
Mathematical
modeling
Analysis of
mathematical
models
Invention and
development of
new computational
algorithms
Analysis of
computational
algorithms
Implementation
of computational
algorithms
Computational
solution of
applications problems
User-friendly
presentation of
solutions
• No student can be expected to learn what is in every ellipse
– but they should learn about more than one ellipse
• No CSE Ph.D. program can do a good job at training students in what is in
every ellipse
– but they should encompass more than one ellipse
– in fact, they should encompass several ellipses
• All CSE Ph.D. programs should have at their core the green ellipse
– the invention and development of new computational algorithms
– all students should receive training in what is in the green ellipse
• Students should learn material from all the mathematical sciences
– mathematics, computer science, statistics
• In addition they should learn something about a science
or engineering discipline
• How can students do this without spending an inordinate amount of time
taking courses?
• First of all, one has to abandon the notion that students will
– know as much math as someone getting a computational math degree
– know as much CS as someone getting a CS degree
– know as much physics as someone getting a physics degree
– etc.
• If, say, a student knows as much math as someone getting a computational
math degree, they are in fact getting a computational math degree
– they have no time to learn substantial amounts about anything else
• What is the alternative?
• Recognize computational science and engineering as a separate discipline
• This means
– acknowledging that CSE is made up of all the ellipses
– designing courses that blend together the math, cs, and stats aspects of
algorithms
– designing applications courses each of which includes something about
modeling, analysis, and computations
– having qualifying exams that encompass more than one ellipse
– having dissertations that reflect research in more than one ellipse
– having committees consisting of experts in more than one ellipse