NEW MINOR TO PAIR COMPUTING WITH TRADITIONAL DISCIPLINES

A new minor in computational methods, on the books at Bryn Mawr this year for the first time, will help students integrate programming skills with traditional disciplines. The new minor will pair courses in basic computational problem-solving and analysis techniques, taught in the Computer Science Program, with courses in computational modeling techniques specific to various disciplines in the sciences as well as archaeology, Cities, economics, mathematics, sociology and philosophy.

"This is about more than learning how to use existing software," says Associate Professor of Computer Science Deepak Kumar, who proposed the minor to the College's Curriculum Committee. "Graduates with this minor will have a deep knowledge of programming, so that they can create their own tools to solve research problems in their own disciplines."

"Traditionally, a minor requires six courses," Kumar explains. "For the minor in computational methods, four of those courses will be computer-science courses, and the remaining two courses will involve training in methods and tools specific to the student's major. Those courses will count toward both the major and the minor."

According to the current catalog, about 35 such courses are already offered at Bryn Mawr. Kumar cites Statistical Methods in Economics and Analysis of Spatial Data Using Geographic Information Systems (cross-listed in geology and archaeology) as examples. A grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (see related story) will fund the development of five new courses that can be applied to the minor: Bioinformatics, Ecological Modeling, Emergent Systems, Visualization: Art and Science and Geographic Information Systems and Science.

Kumar foresees growing interest in the new minor across disciplines. "It's not just the sciences that make use of computational methods," he says. "We're seeing the emergence of computational modeling systems that are grounded in fields across the academic spectrum. As this trend continues, we expect the minor to embrace a lot of disciplines. If a student comes up with a set of courses in a discipline that's not already represented in the catalog listing for the minor, we're very open to considering it."

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