Santa Clara University
The Jesuit university in Silicon Valley
Department
Home 		Overview Majors &
Minors 		Faculty
& Staff 		Colloquium Activities Links to
Resources 		Alumni Putnam
Competition 		Contact
Information

Overview

[fractal2.gif] The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Santa Clara University offers undergraduate students the opportunity to major or to minor in either Mathematics or Computer Science, as well as provides numerous service courses for students in technical and non-technical fields. During the 2007-2008 academic year, the Department is home to about 27 full- and part-time faculty members and roughly 70 departmental majors and minors.

The University is committed to superior undergraduate education, in which teaching is emphasized and the advancement of knowledge through research is valued. Faculty are therefore not only concerned with the quality of their teaching but also carry on active research programs, often with the assistance of students.

The University's location in "Silicon Valley," home to campuses of IBM, Apple, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Hewlett Packard, Netscape, 3Com, Cisco Systems, Genentech, Yahoo, Google, eBay, and other high tech companies, offers many opportunities for contacts by faculty and students alike with this ever-growing industry.

Although the Department does NOT offer graduate work, it strongly encourages students to pursue graduate studies elsewhere. To help prepare students for continuing their education, the Department's program is enriched by a wide range of independent study and directed reading courses. In addition, a long-standing commitment to undergraduate research participation by students allows for collaboration with faculty on projects.

Studying Mathematics and Computer Science
in the College of Arts and Sciences

Since the departments in the College of Arts and Sciences are almost entirely undergraduate,
Math Awareness Month
April 2007
How can math and computer
software help cure epilepsy
and Parkinson's disease?
faculty devote their attention to undergraduate students. Regular faculty, not teaching assistants, provide all instruction. Class sizes are relatively small. Lower-division sections tend to have fewer than 40 students, and most upper-division sections fewer than 20. It is generally agreed that liberals arts programs (whether majors or minors) prepare individuals for life-long learning and to be adaptable to changing situations, rather than merely focusing on skills for the first job.

Mathematics has long been part of a liberal arts curriculum.
Careers In
Mathematics
Video Link
It is the "language" of science and other technical fields, based on logic and abstractions, and focuses on problem-solving techniques. As such it prepares students for careers not only in mathematical education and scientific or other technical fields, but also careers that require analytic skills and the ability to solve various types of problems, such as careers in law.

Computer science programs taught in Colleges of Arts and Sciences tend to focus more on algorithmic and theoretical aspects of computing rather than on hardware, technical details, or specific currently-popular software.
Computing
Careers (ACM)
Link
At Santa Clara, the computer science major is distinguished from the computer engineering degree by a departmental emphasis on the use of computers and computing as a means to, and a subject of, scientific inquiry and problem solving. The curriculum has been crafted in light of national curricular recommendations for computer science programs in liberal arts schools and provides numerous free electives over a four year period to enable a student easily to minor in a related discipline or even, perhaps, to double major. (National guidelines for undergraduate CS programs are available at http://www.acm.org/education/curric_vols/CC2005-March06Final.pdf and http://www.lacs.edu/model-curriculum.pdf.)

The computer science major at SCU has the option to declare an emphasis in cryptography and security. By taking a prescribed sequence of upper-division courses, someone with this emphasis will be gaining a foundation for possible future work in newly developing fields of cybersecurity and steganography. More information available at hotjobs.yahoo.com or here.

Departmental Facilities

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science is located in O'Connor Hall, immediately north of the Mission Church at the center of the oldest section of the campus, and close to the Alumni Science and Daly Science complex. The departmental office (O'Connor 1) is in the lower level of the building along with the "Sussman Room" (O'Connor 31), which is a student lounge named after the first chair of the Department, Irving Sussman. Nearby is a small departmental computer lab.

About half of the Department's faculty have offices in the lower level of O'Connor and half on the third floor. Many of the courses offered by the Department are taught in classrooms located on the first and second floors of O'Connor Hall, enabling students easy access to faculty before or after classes.

University and Departmental Computing Facilities

Santa Clara provides multi-user and personal computing facilities to support its educational programs. Three general purpose computing labs (one in Kenna Hall and two others in the temporary library and in the first floor of Nobili Hall [an auxiliary library facility]) include about 150 Windows machines and 20 Macintoshes. About 60 other machines are available in special classrooms in the Leavey School of Business and Communication Department, and in smaller computer rooms near the Engineering CAD Lab, near the Mathematics and Computer Science Department offices, in the Physics Department, and in the Alumni Science Building.

The School of Engineering Design Center has a network of about 70 workstations running the Unix operating system available to students enrolled in courses offered by the School of Engineering.

The university's library computer, OSCAR, provides catalog access, in addition to access to various CD databases and other electronic facilities. It is accessible via the internet at http://oscar.scu.edu.

All students, faculty, and staff are provided email accounts via the University's GroupWise email program, which can be accessed off-campus via any web browser.

All rooms in the student residence halls are networked to provide internet access and many classrooms and public areas have general access internet jacks. The university is also expanding the number of wireless access points available on campus.

A small, general use, computer lab with 16 Windows machines is located in O'Connor Hall near the deparmental offices of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science to serve students enrolled in courses offered by the Department as well as the general student population as well. The Department also maintains several Unix/Linux servers, used for Computer Science courses.

[ Department Home | Overview | Majors and Minors | Faculty & Staff | Colloquium | Activities | Links to Resources | Alumni | Putnam Competition | Contact Information ]

[SCU Homepage | College of Arts & Sciences | Mathematics/Computer Science Homepage]

Maintainer: webmastr at math.scu.edu
Last Updated: 1 November 2007