<p>I’m not sure what you mean by ‘computational science department’ in relation to Stanford. Are you talking about the Mathematical and Computational Science Program? </p>
<p>[Stanford</a> University - Mathematical and Computational Science Program](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/group/mathcompsci/]Stanford”>http://www.stanford.edu/group/mathcompsci/)</p>
<p>If so, then there wouldn’t be much point in looking into it, since it’s an undergrad-only department. Stanford students actually often see it as an inferior alternative to studying statistics. (Undergrads interested in majoring in statistics are directed to the MCS major, but since Stanford’s stats department is usually ranked #1, you can see why students are bitter about MCS.) If you’re looking for programs like the one above, it’s no surprise that it’s hard to find them - Stanford has a weird tendency to take well-known majors and turn them into something obscure with Stanford’s own “spin” on the field (MCS instead of stats, “symbolic systems” instead of cognitive science, biomechanical engineering instead of the ‘normal’ BME, etc.)</p>
<p>In answer to your question, it’s definitely not that the skill set isn’t valuable, since it obviously is - but given that it’s new and interdisciplinary, there will be many flexible ways that you can study it, and each university will have a different take on it and will run the study of it differently (administratively, e.g. some will have a department, others a program, others maybe just a lab or center). I also don’t think it could be #2, since it definitely does confer skills that you couldn’t get in physics or chemistry (at least, not efficiently). I’m willing to bet that many of the schools that supposedly don’t offer it simply don’t call it “computational science” or it’s subsumed under CS/stats/math departments. The wiki article also calls it scientific computing, which is a term you hear a lot more (pretty sure there are a lot more programs for that).</p>
<p>edit: The wiki article also says that it’s “most often studied through an applied mathematics or computer science program, or within a standard mathematics, sciences, or engineering program.” So that to me says “it’s an established field but it still has a obvious mother discipline and so is usually counted under that.” (Universities are often reluctant to establish interdisciplinary departments because it means they end up duplicating faculty research interests across departments that are highly related, etc.)</p>