New computer science course offered at Southeast in the fall

The computer science department at Southeast Missouri State University is offering a new fall course that will be available for all students to take.

Students interested in learning computer programming that are not majoring or minoring in that particular field of study now have the opportunity in learning and building skills for the computer program industry if interested. Students will be credited three hours.

Computer programming logic, or CS125, will focus on logic concepts that go into computer programming and how they relate to different types of applications.

Dr. David Probst, the chairperson of the Department of Science, said the course is intended for students who do not have to take college algebra, or MA134.

According to the course syllabus, student's objectives will be to demonstrate the ability to locate and gather information; demonstrate capabilities for critical thinking, reasoning and analyzing; demonstrate effective communication skills and demonstrate the ability to integrate the breadth and diversity of knowledge and experience.

The course was first introduced during the fall 2013 semester and will only be offered in future fall semesters. Professor Xuesong Zhang of the computer science department will be teaching the course for his first time this fall. Zhang said that enrollment for last fall was low and he is not expecting as many students to enroll this coming fall semester due to lack of promotion. He hopes that enrollment will be larger in the coming fall semester and that a variety of students from different areas of studies will take part in the new course.

Students completing the course will gain the knowledge that they will need and are expected to understand the fundamental concepts of Boolean logic, which organizes the relationship of keywords given in computer databases for researchers, and be able to comprehend computer algorithms by using programming constructs. Programs such as JavaScript use the Boolean logic.

Before students get the experience of learning computer programming, the course reviews elementary algebraic expressions. Relational operators such as 'less than' and 'greater than' and logical expressions such as 'or' and 'and' are covered first thing because students will be expected to use what they have learned at the beginning of the course and apply it towards assignments throughout the semester.

The syllabus states that students will be able to develop and document computer-based solutions to small problems in an introductory programming language in a spreadsheet application and for simple web programming in HTML using some of the core programming constructs.

Probst said that he was excited about the class being offered at Southeast for many different reasons. One reason was that students who are unsure of their majors may seek an interest in the computer science department during their freshman or sophomore years and decide that it is the area of study the student wants to declare. Another reason is that students from any department at Southeast can take part in the course if they want to, whether they are an art student or business student.

The course prerequisites have changed since last fall. Probst said that before there were more listed. He said he hopes that because the prerequisites are shorter, more students will take the course.

According to the syllabus, students must have an ACT score of 22 or higher and have completed MA106 with a grade of 'C' or higher.

"We got the door wide open for students majoring in different areas or those minoring in computer science or business," Zhang said. "It's everything possible."

Zhang said he hopes students master the material well and learn the objectives so that they will have the skills and also be able to land a job in the future.