COMPUTER SCIENCE: MISCONCEPTIONS, CAREER PATHS AND RESEARCH CHALLENGES

Transcription

1 COMPUTER SCIENCE: MISCONCEPTIONS, CAREER PATHS AND RESEARCH CHALLENGES School of Computing and Information Sciences Florida International University Slides Prepared by: Vagelis Hristidis (CS Assistant Professor) Fernando Farfán (CS PhD Student) Stephen Bromfield (CS Undergraduate Student) Juan Duarte (CS Undergraduate Student)

2 Computer Science Misconceptions 2 Some preconceived ideas & stereotypes about Computer Science (CS) are quite common. These Misconceptions present a negative image of the CS field. Discourages students, especially females, from pursuing a course of study or career in CS

3 Computer Science Misconceptions 3

4 Overcoming the Stereotypes 4 Important that we rebut negative preconceived notions of CS. We aim to promote more progressive notions about CS, putting it in a more positive light. One of our goals is to clear such misconceptions and instill interest in CS field. Do not be deterred by some of these common misconceptions, they are misleading!

5 Computer Science is the bee s knees! 5 CS field is in very high demand. CS encompasses much more than just programming. Abundance of challenges to investigate in CS, allowing for a large number of various research areas. With the ongoing rise of technology s popularity, CS works closely with a growing amount of disciplines.

6 6 Computer Science is Facilitator of other Disciplines Areas of research/development in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Bio-medical Engineering, Medicine, Robotics, Telecommunications, Entertainment, Security, and Finance are using CS to advance their research and manage their data. The world has been changing to capitalize on the success of computer technology and Computer Science is leading the change!

7 Computer Science Career Paths Computer Science vs. Information Technology Degrees Computer Science (CS) is the branch of engineering science that studies (with the aid of computers) computable processes and structures. Information Technology (IT) is the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computerbased information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware.

8 What do we study? 8 Computer science: Theory of computation, data structures, algorithms, programming languages, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, and more. Information technology: data management, networking, databases, software design, the administration of entire systems, and more.

9 What can I do with my CS degree? 9 Software engineer Computer teacher Computer graphics animator Embedded system programmer (cell phones and robots)

10 What can I do with my IT degree? 10 Network engineer Database administrator Customer support technician Computer security

11 11 But how much can I make out of college? Software engineer $60,000 a year Database administer $50,000 a year Computer graphics specialist $40,000 a year Network engineer $40,000 a year After a PhD Degree in Computer Science, starting salary is usually over $100,000 a year, at university or research lab. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

12 12 Computer Science at Florida International University Degree Programs ABET Accredited Computer Science Bachelors program Research intensive Computer Science Masters and Ph.D. programs Industry Focused Information Technology Bachelors (single and double major) Over 1,200 students 30+ Faculty members 25+ dedicated research and instructional labs 500+ servers, workstations & PCs on high speed networking

13 Research Centers and Laboratories 13 NSF CREST Center for Advanced Information Processing and High Confidence Systems (crest.fiu.edu) Latin American Grid and the IBM Center for Grid and Autonomic Computing (lagrid.fiu.edu) High Performance Database Research Center (hpdrc.cis.fiu.edu) Center for Advanced Distributed System Engineering (cadse.cis.fiu.edu) Distributed Multimedia & Information System Laboratory (dmis.cis.fiu.edu) Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Laboratory (cis.fiu.edu)

14 Degrees from FIU School of Computing 14 and Information Sciences BS in Computer Science BS in Information Technology MS in Computer Science PhD in Computer Science

15 D. Computer Science Research: 15 Areas of Study Artificial Intelligence Bioinformatics, Medical informatics Computer Security Databases, Data management, Data mining Robotics, Automatization Search Engines Technology Many, many more

16 16 Computer Science Research: Search Engines Technology What is a search engine? A software tool used to search information on the WWW. Who needs a search engine? Almost every human being! Business, arts, sports, games, etc.

17 17 Searching the Web Throughout the Ages Why is so difficult to make a good search engine? Early 90 s: Few hundred Websites. Archie: Only titles of files were stored in one central server More than 10 billion Web pages. Search over Text, Video, Images, Blogs, social networks family guy cave family guy

18 How to Find What I Want on the Web? 18 Web crawlers (spiders): Little programs built by search engines to visit all the pages in the WWW. Make an INDEX: what words appear on what web page. Don t forget: 10 BILLION WEB PAGES!!!!!

19 How do we Search the Web, Anyway? 19 A query? Yes! A keyword query. Simple User interface Use the INDEX, Luke! What pages contain the query keywords But??? How do we order the results?

20 Ranking Search Results 20 Term Frequency How many times does the terms appear in every page? Document Frequency How common is the term in the entire document collection? Document Length How long is the document? A shorter document is more concise!

21 Ranking Search Results (Cont.) 21 Hyperlink structure PageRank by Google: Important pages link to important pages!

22 22 Nowadays, Many Types of Search Engines Search engines for specific purposes Use domain knowledge to make a better search.

23 Computer Science Research: 23 Search Engines Technology Open Research Issues in Web Search: Incorporate knowledge from social networks like Facebook: Trust propagation among friends Handle Page Hyperlinks vs. Friendship connections Personalization: Learn users preferences. Answer natural language questions: who invented penicillin?

24 E. Project Description 24 Part A: Show evidence that the four above ranking factors are used by Google Part B: Propose and investigate your own ranking factors (e.g., pages with black font are better than ones with color fonts?)

25 Our Website and Contact Information 25 Our Website Project supported by National Science Foundation Grant IIS

26 References All_Designs. html