Moving Ahead with Undergraduate Computational Science Programs (Abstract Only)

Abstract

The use of computation alongside the natural sciences is moving research forward at unprecedented rates. Computational scientists are in high demand, and the undergraduate level is a great place to begin training students for work in this area. Furthermore, studies have shown that applied programs such as computational science are attractive to students and aid in retention. Yet, the number of undergraduate computational science programs remains very limited. Throughout informal conversations with colleagues who were interested in combining computing and science, we repeatedly heard 2 reasons why a computational science program was missing from their institution: 1) they lacked counterparts in the natural sciences who were interested in working with them and 2) their department couldn't support the change in personnel or curriculum that they thought was required to introduce and maintain a computational science program. Addressing the first concern, this poster displays some of what was learned from interviews with 20 natural scientists regarding how they currently or might work with a computational counterpart. Our hope is that this information might be used in conversations with reluctant natural scientists. Addressing the second concern, this poster summarizes the content of computational science programs that currently exist for undergraduates, including majors, minors, computational tracks in science majors or science tracks in computational majors, and science or computational courses with complementary material. Our hope is that this summary will encourage colleagues that, given such variety, there is a place for some form of computational science at their institution.