School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics A Faculty Member’s Perspective

School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics

A Faculty Member’s Perspective

School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics

The UAB CIS Undergraduate ExperienceThe UAB CIS Undergraduate Experience

1. Preparing Students for Technology Leadership

Software is Everywhere

• Think of some of the things that entertain and enrich your daily life

• All of the above are driven by software

• Software developers equipped with a computer science degree have opportunities to work on exciting and cutting-edge projects

Software is Everywhere• 98% of all microprocessors control devices other than desktop computers– Automobiles, airplanes, televisions, copiers, razors…

• These devices also need software and often require strong technical skills to develop

>10Mb embedded software15-20Kb 1-1.5Mb

> 1M SLOC

“… the software industry is going to make more breakthroughs in these next 10 years than it's made in the last 30 … software is really going to transform not just what we think about as the computer industry, but the way that everything is done …”

Intellectual Opportunities

Re-architecting the Internet

Harnessing parallelism

Quantum computing

Transforming all fieldsof science and engineering

Wrecklessdriving

Prosthetics / augmentation /

access

Transforming the nation’s defense

The Demand for Computer Scientists

Computer Science occupations are projected to grow twice as fast as the average for all occupations.

Source: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2007/fall/art02.pdf

Between 2006-2016 a projected 822,000 new jobs will be available in Computer Science occupation areas in the United States alone.




Companies hiring recent UAB CIS Grads


2. Mentoring in Research and Scholarly Activities

Mentored Preparation for Real-World Challenges


Reasons to Consider UAB CIS• Undergraduate Research Opportunities

– CIS undergraduates are awarded summer internships to participate in special research programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The students participating in these opportunities continue their research throughout the academic year and prepare research talks and papers that are published at regional conferences. Over the past two years, CIS students placed in the top 3 at the ACM Mid-southeast conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Three First-Place Winners: UAB CIS students have received first place in all categories (Undergrad, Masters, PhD) amid students from 7 states.

Freshman ResearchUndergraduate Amos Smith presented his research as a true Freshman (first in conference’s 30 year history), and was awarded first place as a Sophomore.

Reasons to Consider UAB CIS• Programming Contest Team

– Each year, the CIS department sends our top 9 students to compete in the annual ACM programming contest (held the last few years in Melbourne, Florida). To prepare students for this competition, a new course has been introduced in the curriculum that teaches students problem solving techniques not typically covered in core courses.

The 2008 UAB CIS Competitive Programming teams placed 1st and 2nd at their contest site for the ACM International Computer Programming Competition, beating all other schools in Alabama and Mississippi and producing UAB's best-ever finish in the Southeast region overall (5th and 13th place overall in Southeast).

Microsoft Imagine Cup Finalist

• May 2009, Cambridge, MA

• One of 15 teams, out of 200, invited to the Microsoft Imagine Cup Finals

• Winner of the “People’s Choice” Award

UAB Computer Forensics

• break new ground in the research areas of Spam, Phishing, and Malware

• provide the most qualified graduates to fill a large pool of available cybercrime analysis positions

• reduce the victim pool by explaining cybercrime to the public

One Day of Phishing

The Law Enforcement Spam Problem

UAB is working to turn raw spam data into actionable intelligence.

Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining

• The KDDM lab supports education and research of new algorithms, systems, and applications for large-scale data mining and visualization.

Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining

Geometric Modeling and Medical Imaging

• Scientific Research

• Real-worldApplications



3. Social and Professional Networking Opportunities

Student Chapter of Association for Computing Machinery– Ice Cream Socials; Volleyball Picnics– Educational and Career Seminars– Community Volunteerism


2. Mentoring in Research and Scholarly Activities


3. Social and Professional Networking Opportunities


High School Outreach at UAB CISMentoring for Science Fair Competitions Summer Camps

• Weekly mentoring at UAB throughout academic year; students treated like a PhD student with office space

www.cis.uab.edu/gray/Pubs/jerrod-sutton.pdf

www.cis.uab.edu/progams/campswww.cis.uab.edu/heritage

www.cis.uab.edu/progams/hspcwww.cis.uab.edu/progams/alice-festival

Programming Contest and Alice Festival

•6 weeks High School; 1 weeks Middle School•Tuition Scholarships Available•Taught by UAB Faculty•Topics include Java, robotics, graphics,

game programming, scientific computing•In 2009, over 65 students attended

• May 2010• Over 150 students and

parents from across Alabama

• Prizes: Laptop, Xbox, software, books, gift certificates

• Alice Film Festival!

Documents

School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics A Faculty Member’s Perspective