Introductory computer science students took midterms in five different rooms this term after a surge in enrollment across the department’s courses left professors scrambling to accommodate demand. Next fall, the department will cap enrollment in introductory sections at 180 students after enrollment nearly doubled, from 143 students last fall to over 280 students this spring.
Most seats in the capped course will go to first- and second-year students, department chair Tom Cormen said.
Despite the jump in students electing the course, the department has not amended its curriculum, professor Hany Farid, who teaches an introductory course, said.
“This will be a constant refinement of our strategy,” Farid said. “I don’t think we’ve peaked yet, but we have to figure out the demand.”
During spring course election, the computer science department was “blindsided” by enrollment, Cormen said.
The increase, he said, may be due to “pent-up demand” because the course, usually offered every term, was not offered in the winter.
The jump placed increased pressure on the department to find teacher assistants, who run weekly recitations and grade papers for groups of about 10 students each, Farid said. This term, the class has 28 assistants in order to maintain a usual recitation size.
As long as the department maintains the section leader-to-student ratio, course size should not affect the way it is taught, former TA and modified computer science major Jaki Kimball ’16 said.
Space has also posed a challenge, Cormen said. Both scheduling classrooms for the recitation sections and obtaining large enough classrooms for the expanding courses has become difficult.
The department chose to introduce the 180-student cap to avoid scrambling for classrooms and sections and to let the class fit comfortably into a lecture hall such as Life Sciences Center 100.
Nonetheless, the department is pleased with the increased interest, Cormen said.
“We love having these problems, but it is definitely straining our resources,” Cormen said.
Changes to the introductory sequence, which made the preliminary courses more amenable to non-majors, the availability of jobs in the computer science field and the prominence of computers in popular culture could also have contributed to the rising enrollments, Cormen said.
“I think for the next several years, we’ll see strong interest in computer science because people are really seeing that computation is everywhere and it’s in everything,” Cormen said. “And it’s true, if you can’t compute, you can’t compete.”
Kimball said that a growing number of students may realize that computer science skills are prevalent in modern business and life.
Rachel Porth ’16, who is enrolled in the introductory course, said she decided to take the class not only for a distributive requirement, but also because programming seemed like a “good life skill.” Although the enrollment cap would not affect the nature of the class, Porth said she believed it could discourage students who do not get in from pursuing computer science.
Farid contrasted the current nationwide trend in increasing interest in computer science with the decline of enthusiasm related to the “dot-com bubble” of the 1990s.
The department also anticipates a large enrollment in Computer Science 10, another major prerequisite, and plans to offer two sections in the fall, Cormen said.
More advanced computer science classes have also seen a trend of rising enrollment.
Computer science professor Devin Balkcom said that while his course on artificial intelligence course had only about 20 students two years ago, 99 students enrolled last winter. Although the class still focused on project-based assignments, the enrollment led him to change the assignments’ style and add a peer review component.
“We lost the flavor of a discussion class, and it became a lecture, which is a real loss,” Balkcom said.
Enrollment in a course on machine learning also doubled in the past year, from 40 to 80 students. As a result of the spike in numbers, computer science professor Lorenzo Torresani was forced to remove a project from the course, Cormen said. To account for an expected increase in student enrollment, the department will offer the class twice next year.
“I love this stuff, so of course, I think the question is, ‘Why are there still people not taking CS 1?’” Balkcom said.
There are about 55 majors each in the Classes of 2014, 2015 and 2016, a jump from previous class years, Cormen said.