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An MS in CS for non-CS Majors: Moving to Increase Diversity of Thought and Demographics in CS

Authors:

Catherine Gill,

Benjamin Hescott,

Cynthia LuBien,

Tiffani Williams,

Andrea DanylukAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Pages 1248 - 1254

https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366802

Published: 26 February 2020 Publication History

Abstract

We have created, piloted and are growing the Align program, a Master of Science in Computer Science (MS in CS) for post-secondary graduates who did not major in CS. Our goal is to create a pathway to CS for all students, with particular attention to women and underrepresented minorities. Indeed, women represent 57% and underrepresented minorities represent 25% of all bachelor's recipients in the U.S., but only 19.5% and 12.6% of CS graduates, respectively. If we can fill this opportunity gap, we will satisfy a major economic need and address an issue of social equity and inclusion. In this paper, we present our "Bridge'' curriculum, which is a two-semester preparation for students to then join the traditional MS in CS students in master's-level classes. We describe co-curricular activities designed to help students succeed in the program. We present our empirical findings around enrollment, demographics, retention and job outcomes. Among our findings is that Align students outperform our traditional MS in CS students in grade point average. To date we have graduated 137 students and 827 are enrolled.

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Cited By

Akhmetov ISchmidt L(2024)Building Bridges in Computer Networks: A Nifty Assignment for Cross-Language Learning and Code RefactoringProceedings of the 26th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education10.1145/3660650.3660665(1-2)Online publication date: 2-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3660650.3660665
Zhu J(2023)Exploring Women’s Experiences of Transition into Computing Careers from Non-Computing BackgroundsProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 210.1145/3568812.3603460(55-58)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568812.3603460
Zhu JLunn SRoss MDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Characterizing Women's Alternative Pathways to a Computing Career Using Content AnalysisProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569798(158-164)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569798
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

An MS in CS for non-CS Majors: Moving to Increase Diversity of Thought and Demographics in CS
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

February 2020

1502 pages

ISBN:9781450367936

DOI:10.1145/3328778

General Chairs:
Jian Zhang
Texas Woman's University, USA
,
Mark Sherriff
University of Virginia, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Sarah Heckman
North Carolina State University, USA
,
Pamela Cutter
Kalamazoo College, USA
,
Alvaro Monge
California State University, Long Beach, USA

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 26 February 2020

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SIGCSE '20: The 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 11 - 14, 2020

OR, Portland, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

Akhmetov ISchmidt L(2024)Building Bridges in Computer Networks: A Nifty Assignment for Cross-Language Learning and Code RefactoringProceedings of the 26th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education10.1145/3660650.3660665(1-2)Online publication date: 2-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3660650.3660665
Zhu J(2023)Exploring Women’s Experiences of Transition into Computing Careers from Non-Computing BackgroundsProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 210.1145/3568812.3603460(55-58)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568812.3603460
Zhu JLunn SRoss MDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Characterizing Women's Alternative Pathways to a Computing Career Using Content AnalysisProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569798(158-164)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569798
Bandi ACase DEloe NFellah AHoot C(2022)Challenges developing and teaching online professional courses for technical graduate programsJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3532930.353294037:6(71-72)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3532930.3532940
Hsu HMemon N(2021)Crossing the Bridge to STEMACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/344089221:2(1-16)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3440892
Krenz GKaczmarek TMoyer JSchulte CBecker BDivitini MBarendsen E(2021)Rapid Entry into Masters in Computing Program for Non-MajorsProceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3430665.3456365(505-511)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3430665.3456365
Brodley CCuny J(2020)The MSCS New Pathways Consortium - a National Invitation2020 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT)10.1109/RESPECT49803.2020.9272440(1-2)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/RESPECT49803.2020.9272440

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