Catalog Changes for MCS Courses

The 2007-2008 catalog will show several changes in the MCS Department’s courses. To help students plan, I’ll provide a preview of the changes I anticipate. If you have any concerns about these changes, I would urge you to talk them over with your advisor or with me. We certainly are not trying to cause problems.

1. To provide a more consistent number of upper-level math electives each semester, we will be moving MCS-344 (Special Topics in Mathematics) to Fall of odd years, starting with Fall, 2007. The current offering of that course (Spring, 2007) will be the last one on the old pattern of Spring of odd years. Although this transition means we will be offering the course two semesters in a row, the topic will be different. In Fall of 2007, the topic will be Differential Geometry.
2. To more closely match actual enrollment levels, MCS-313 (Modern Algebra I) will be saled back to only Fall of even years (rather than both semesters of even years) and MCS-331 (Real Analysis) to only Fall of odd years (rather than both semesters of odd years). In both cases, the successor course (MCS-314 or MCS-332) will continue to be offered the following semester.
3. Two lower-level courses will also be scaled back (in this case, from twice per year to once per year) to better match enrollment levels. MCS-170 (The Nature of Computer Science) will now only be offered in the Spring and MCS-236 (Graph Theory) will now only be offered in the Fall.
4. Two courses with will be eliminated entirely: MCS-132 (Honors Calculus II) and MCS-200 (Problem Solving). In the case of MCS-132, the department believes the affected students can be appropriately served through the normal MCS-122 (Calculus II) sections. In the case of MCS-200, the department will be naming a faculty advisor to work with a student problem-solving group and facilitate continued participation in problem-solving competitions.