I saw in Kenyon’s website that kenyon actually does not have a computer science major but a scientfic computing concentration. Can any kenyon student who has studied this course shed light on how it compares to the typical cs major? Also, what exactly is meant by scientific computing ’ concentration.’
Any help will be much much appreciated. Thanks
I’m currently a senior at kenyon and I’ve taken a lot of classes within the scientific computing department. I saw your post and decided to quickly make an account to respond. There’s no major or minor right now, but they’ll be adding one in the coming years. From my understanding, they’re waiting on the proper funding so that they can hire enough faculty to make a full fledged program. I had never done anything related to coding until I took intro programming my sophomore year with professor Skon. While the availability of courses is lacking right now, I think it’s fully possible to go into software development after kenyon, without being a CS major. One option is doing a synoptic major which involves creating your own major. I know a guy who graduated a year ago who made a synoptic major in game development by combining CS classes and art classes at kenyon, and then coursework which he did during a year abroad. I know someone else who was a math major and has been accepted into a PHD program for CS at a really good university. While the department is a bit lacking, it also gives you an ability to stand out. I showed in class that I was willing to put in some work and was able to get summer jobs out of it after my sophomore and junior years. Overall the department is lacking, but the professor(s) (there’s only one full time CS guy) really care about their students. If you know that it’s something your interested in, you can totally succeed at Kenyon, and get some other great skills out of it which larger more STEM based universities can’t give you. Hope this helps.
@iGoToKenyon Thank you so much for your detailed response.
Also, is the synoptic major something that is unique at Kenyon? I typed in the words "synoptic major " in google search and the first result that appeared was kenyon’s website about it.