Incoming Engineering Student (Thinking CompSci)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Texas A&M University
1

Greetings all

As the title says, I’m an incoming engineering student (Class of 2020, starting in the fall of 2016) who is thinking about choosing computer science for their major (after the first year general engineering classes of course). I’ve been looking at the suggested degree plan, however, and ran into some confusion. I’ve contacted one of the CS advisors (at the email listed on the website), but no response yet. I’m hoping one of you lovely people can help me out (flattery gets you everywhere, so I’ve heard).

On the “Recommended Sequence of Courses”, it lists “Computer Science Electives” and “Concentration Electives”. Are the CS Electives just general CS Electives, while the Concentration Electives are the 7 required electives from the “CPSC Upper Level Track”? Or are the Computer Science Electives the 7 required electives from the CPSC Upper Level Track, and the Concentration Electives are for the “Emphasis Area”?

On that note, what is the “Emphasis Area”? And is it already factored into the degree plan, or are they hours in addition to what is required?

(I suppose this one would be for people who have already completed the program) Did you feel the singular class in statistics was enough? I have heard CS is very stats-centric.

For the required 15 hours of science classes, do the general engineering physics and chemistry classes count to this?

Finally, a few questions about non-CS matters.

To those of you who are psychology majors, how do you feel about the TAMU psychology program in terms of workload, intensity, etc.

To those of you who are urban and regional planning majors, how do you feel about the TAMY urban and regional planning program in terms of workload, intensity, etc.

Any help is greatly appreciated, and thank you in advance.

2

Just to clarify, I’m going off of this catalog/degree plan:
https://engineering.tamu.edu/media/3708723/cpsc201631-20160610.pdf

3

Alright I’m going to try and break down the degree for you since I am a Comp Sci major.

They changed the degree plan so you are now required to take ENGR 111 and ENGR 112 your first year. You have to take Cal 1 and 2. For your 3rd math class you have the option to take Diff EQ, Cal 3, or an upper level discrete math class.

For Science classes you are required to take 4. You can take Chem or Physics. Then finish it with the geography or geology course. Take Chem 1 and Chem 2 your freshman year. Or if you are really good at Physics take Physics 218 and Physics 208. The other science classes you can take are on the degree plan. You are not required to take Physics or Chem 107 but you have to choose one of those 2 for entry to major.

For Computer Science the required classes are CSCE 121, 181, 221, 222, 312, 313, 314, 315, and 411. 411 is one of the Computer Science electives so now you can choose 6 computer science electives. The list is on the degree plan. You will take these classes mostly in your Junior and Senior Year. From the electives you have to take at least 1 class from each category. There are 4 categories.

For the concentration area, it is the same as emphasis area. You can have a focus on Business, Art, etc. The adviser has to approve those courses for you. It is already factored into the degree plan. Some ICD courses are not factored into the degree plan because they can matched with other requirements. Like Art History counts towards Creative Arts and ICD credit.