What students, faculty, and recent graduates say about Computer Science at Principia.

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Mastering the concept of problem-solving

"The comp sci major gives you a chance to be creative, to explore your ideas, to come up with solutions to problems. You work on a program in class for a long time, and it's just a great joy when you get it right—your own masterpiece," says a senior with minors in physics and mathematics. Says a professor, "In software engineering, you take a large, complex problem, and break it down into smaller, key elements. You solve the pieces, then integrate those solutions back into something that comprehensively solves the original problem. This approach works well in business, too." A sophomore comp sci major adds, "There's also a real sense of camaraderie among the students, a sense of wanting to help the others along. If one person is behind in one area, everyone usually chips in to help him or her get up to speed."

Persistence rewarded

"Certainly, I'm not afraid of working long hours. It can be frustrating when you get bugs in the program you're writing. You have to be patient and pray for the right idea—and they come along every time. It's something I enjoy proving over and over again," says a senior. Studying computer science at Principia, he adds, "has given me a good work ethic, which will be valuable in the business world."

"In grad school I studied technology and human affairs," says a recent graduate who is currently a programmer. "In a computer science class the professor said I was the only student to complete the assigned programming. It made me realize that at Prin there's an expectation that you will finish projects, and obviously, I had gained the needed competence to do so."

Learning how to learn

"At Principia we were taught the core things, but more importantly we learned how to learn," says a graduate in a Ph.D. program in computer science at a major university in California. "When I got here, I found that the graphics course I was expected to TA used a completely different language and setup than the one I had taken at Prin. But because I had learned how to learn, it was very easy to plug myself into what was going on here.

"I have talked to prospective Principia students who are concerned that such a small school might not have a rigorous computer science program. In fact, Prin is actually more rigorous. As a TA at one of the top-ten schools in computer science, I have seen classes of a hundred students, and a third of them are sliding by. When you are in a class of eight at Principia, you can't slide by; you have to learn the material."

Resources: human and non-human

"We have a fast and powerful HP Unix system," says a sophomore comp sci major. "You can do some really serious programming on it. In the advanced data structure class you learn about high-level data-structure programming: about storing and retrieving data quickly, about building, and about the database engines found in some of the higher government facilities. We wrote a program for the structure called the B tree. I'm learning C++ programming language. My professor is a great help. If I'm not understanding something, he'll work me through it until I understand the concept."

Commitment leads to flexibility

"It's a flexible major, too," a senior adds. "You can take it wherever you want to go by taking independent classes. I like the growth and personal exploration. The lab students are a fun group, but you have to be willing to put in a lot of time." Majors cap off their experience by doing a final project spring quarter, focusing on a special area of interest, such as graphics, artificial intelligence, operating systems, or software engineering. "In computer architecture class the last project is to build a simple computer from chips and wires—it's a really, really cool project, especially when it finally works!" says a senior with a math minor. "There's lots to explore and learn about our HP Unix system. I don't know if I'll ever have enough time to sit down and figure out everything we have here. And even in the required classes the professors give you a lot of freedom to focus on things that interest you."

Preparation for a fast-paced field

"What excites me about the computer science program at Principia," says a professor, "is that it's embedded in a liberal arts program. And we're not just talking when we say that we think we are turning out successful problem-solvers. We are also hearing that from the people who hire them." An alum who works for Intel in product marketing says, "The computer science curriculum at Principia was comparable to what some of my business colleagues encountered during their master's program at an Ivy League school. At Principia I learned how to approach problems. I learned to see the context of the problem and then delve deeply into solutions, coming up with both straightforward and creative answers. I came to Intel as an intern after my junior year and was able to get a position in software engineering after I graduated. Computer science certainly was a major that was directly applicable to my career."