Enrollments for Spring 2025

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Here’s my usual report on our spring 2025 enrollments, as of week 2 of the semester.

NumberTitleEnrolled/Capunder MathShe:He
CS 167-A,BIntro. Computational Problem Solving51/601:2
CS 210-A,BComputer Systems Fundamentals40/403:5
CS/Math 215Introduction to Data Science26/2511:1
CS 255Computer Simulation Methods21/241:2
CS 267Human-Computer Interaction16/161:1
CS 270-A,BData Structures21/321:3
CS 303ST: Computational Exercises12/301:3
CS/Math 327Algorithm Design & Analysis21/2411:4
CS/Math 350Foundations of Machine Learning23/20201:3
CS 370Software Design24/201:2
CS 496Capstone Project II22/161:3

Commentary

No big surprises here. While our rosters are typically a quarter to a third women, we see that Data Science and Human-Computer Interaction both have a balanced gender ratio. Unfortunately, CS 167 is not as balanced as it sometimes is.

CS 303, ST: Computational Exercises, is being offered by John Stratton as an overload for the second time. This 1-credit course gives students additional practice with solving algorithm design puzzles similar to those found on coding competition websites like LeetCode or Codewars, or in some technical interviews. We look forward to regularizing this opportunity.

CS/Math 350, Foundations of Machine Learning, is the class formerly known as Mathematical Modeling and continues to be taught by Doug Hundley (Mathematics). It is mostly populated by Math majors.

What’s not visible in the table above is that this is another semester of unbalanced enrollments:

  • 30 students in CS 167 at 9 am vs 21 at 8 am.
  • 16 students in CS 270 at 9 am vs 5 at 8 am. (The smaller section is majority women, while the larger has only one woman.)
  • 28 students in CS 210 at 11 am vs 13 at 2:30 pm.

Other department news

We are thrilled that both our current visitors have agreed to stay at Whitman for another year. We are in the process of proposing to search for a fifth tenure-track faculty member next year, while I will be on sabbatical.

The tenure-track faculty were hard at work developing a new curriculum over the last summer and fall. That curriculum has now been approved by the faculty. Watch for future blog posts concerning the contents and rationale of the new curriculum, as well as our transition plan.

Guest post: CS student experiences at DIS Copenhagen

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Today in our weekly CS Pizza talk and discussion series, the CS department hosted a panel of senior CS majors sharing their off-campus study experiences. Five juniors went abroad last year, and four were able to join the lunchtime panel. I was unable to attend because of my daughter’s early school dismissal, but I hear it went really well!

LJ Friedman, who was unable to join the panel due to a conflicting class, offered to write up his experiences. I offered to share it as a guest post in my blog, and here it is!

Hi! My name is LJ Friedman. I’m a senior Computer Science major and am expecting to minor in Psychology, Math, and Music. I chose to study in Copenhagen because of the offered classes and the location. The program had several courses I was interested in that were more niche and/or didn’t exist at Whitman, and I was excited to take a spread of both Computer Science and Psychology courses that covered topics I otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to take. I was primarily interested in the Game Design course, which focused on teaching game design, coding organization, and Unity and C#. There were also Psychology courses that I was particularly interested in, specifically a course on identity, conflict, and discrimination. 

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New colleagues 2024

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One of the responsibilities of the department chair is to introduce new colleagues at the first faculty meeting of the new academic year. So I just wrote one-minute introductions for my new colleagues, Sachintha Pitigala and Richard Torres Molina. I thought I’d share them here:

Sachintha Pitigala joins us this year from Sri Lanka, where he is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Kelaniya. Sachintha is not a stranger to the United States, however, as he earned his PhD in Computational Science at Middle Tennessee State University. His dissertation focused on “Developing a personalized article retrieval system for PubMed.” At Whitman, Sachintha will draw on his depth of experience to teach our introductory course, CS 167, as well as a course on Machine Learning or Artificial Intelligence this spring. His most recent research applies machine learning techniques to simulating drone dynamics.

Richard Torres Molina joins us from Virginia Tech, where he just completed a Masters degree in Computer Science and Applications. Richard, too, is a global citizen. After earning a bachelors degree in Information Technology in his home country of Ecuador, Richard went on to earn a further certificate in Information Technology in Shenzhen, China, a certificate in Chinese Language and Culture in Beijing, and a Masters degree in Advanced Systems Dependability jointly from the University of St Andrews and the University of Lorraine. At Whitman, Richard will be teaching a special topics course on Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development Goals, as well as our regular courses on Data Structures and Software Design.

Watch here for the ongoing saga of course registration for the fall 2024 semester. In the meantime, please join me in welcoming Sachintha and Richard!

Will AI write your thesis?

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This fall, I was honored to serve as Whitman’s convocation speaker. When I agreed to speak, I had no idea what I would talk about, but by time I sat down to write it was obvious what question to ask. It was a fun speech to write, and as I learned more, I changed my conclusion several times. It was a fun speech to deliver, and I appreciate all those who laughed in the right places. Continue reading →