Computer Science

Angelo State University is now far and away the most popular destination for computer science majors in the Lone Star conference:

ASU’s CS enrollment has had double-digit growth for the past few years, fueled by the popularity of our game-development program and the employment opportunities available to CS graduates. In addition to a Bachelor’s degree in computer science, we offer a Certificate in Computer Game Development.

(Some enrollment figures are estimated.)

Great news for computer science majors:

Computer Science Overtakes Accounting as Major with Top Offer Rate for the Class of 2011

Financial Services company USAA has announced it is providing financial support to the ASU Department of Computer Science to develop an online version of the department’s Android programming course. The ASU CS department began teaching Android application development in January as part of the CS 3372 course in Handheld Game Development. Previously, the course targeted the Nintendo Gameboy Advance platform.

“We are very excited that USAA is supporting us to bring our Android programming course to a wider audience, “ said Dr. Tim Roden, head of the ASU Computer Science Department. “This is the kind of course that gives students the tools they need to be successful in todays market.”

The San Antonio-based financial services company currently employs about a hundred full-time developers in its mobile development group. USAA is also in the process of making offers to ASU computer science students from the spring Android class to intern this summer. USAA was recently named the number one IT company in the U.S. to work for by ComputerWorld magazine.

IBM has developed an artificial intelligence named Watson, built to parse questions in a natural (human) language and answer them.  Watson uses ideas from several areas of artificial intelligence, such as natural language processing, knowledge representation and machine learning.  It has been adapted to play Jeopardy! against human contestants, and this week it is competing against two former Jeopardy! champions on CBS.  The Department of Computer Science has received some local publicity in a San Angelo Standard-Times article about the event.

Each spring at ASU Rob LeGrand teaches Computer Science 4318, Artificial Intelligence, which covers some of the concepts and techniques that have made Watson possible, many of which are also useful when creating computer games.  It is a required course for the Certificate of Computer Game Development.  Central to the course is a series of Agent Challenges, in which students program intelligent agents to compete against (and/or cooperate with) other students on particular tasks.

You can find out more about Watson at IBM’s website.

The Texas Tech University System Board of Regents approved the new certificate program in Game Development for the Computer Science Department. The program will start in Spring 2011.

Students will successfully complete four courses to receive the Game Development Certificate. The certification will appear on their official permanent University transcript. The courses required are: CS 3371, Computer Game Development I; CS 4371, Computer Game Development II; CS 3372, Handheld Game Development; and CS 4318, Artificial Intelligence.

On Saturday, October 30th, two Angelo State teams competed in the South Central USA Regional of the 2010 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest at Baylor University (one of four sites in the regional) in Waco, Texas, and they made ASU’s best showing in the ACM contest in fourteen years.  Out of eight problems, one ASU team solved four perfectly and the other solved two.  According to the regional standings, the four-point performance was good enough for 27th place out of 71 teams overall, 5th place out of 21 teams from undergraduate-only computer science programs, and 1st place out of 5 undergraduate-only teams at the Baylor site.  The ASU students taking part were James Reid, Kyle Corases, Mat Gray, Joey Burney, Zach Marsden, Justin Springer and Zachary Holley, coached by Rob LeGrand and Tim Roden.

The number of ASU students majoring in Computer Science increased by 38.1% from Fall 2009 to Fall 2010 making the ASU CS department the fastest growing undergraduate degree program at ASU.  The department has 163 majors this fall compared to 118 in fall 2009.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 edition, Computer Science ranks number one among the fastest growing occupations requiring a Bachelor’s degree, in terms of the number of new jobs. Projections are that 175,100 new jobs will be created by 2018 in the category of Computer Software Engineer. 155,800 new jobs will be created in the category of Network Systems and Data Communication Analysts. The top paying occupation in the list is Computer Software Engineer, with a median wage of $85,430.

The ASU Computer Science Department will become one of the first universities in the nation to offer a course in Android programming.  The course, CS 3372 (Handheld Game Development), will be offered in Spring 2011 and is open to CS students who have completed CS 2305 (Data Structures).  Completion or concurrent enrollment in CS 1351 (Java Programming) is also recommended but not required.  The course will be taught by Dr. Tim Roden.  

“The course will have a focus on multimedia application development and will provide students the skills they need to develop games or other multimedia-related apps”, said Roden.  “This is the kind of class that prepares students to take advantage of opportunities that exist now.”  

With the announcement of the new course, San Antonio-based financial services company USAA, has agreed to offer summer internships in its mobile applications development group to CS students taking the ASU course.  USAA was rated number one as best IT company in the U.S. to work for by ComputerWorld magazine in the June 2010 issue surveying the top 100 IT companies.

Dr. Charles B. McCamant, retired CS professor, was awarded Professor of Computer Science Emeritus during the Faculty Recognition Dinner on May 6, 2010 . Dr. McCamant served as a faculty member for 26 years, including 6 years as department head. Pictured are (from left) Dr. Grady Blount, Dean of the College of Sciences, Dr. McCamant, and Dr. Tim Roden, Computer Science Department Head.