Undergraduate-led survey class to improve cs education for new students

Abstract

Many first-year undergraduate students do not have sufficient breadth of technical knowledge about subjects in Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Science (CS) to make informed choices toward their education. By the time students are exposed to subjects they may be interested in, the cost of switching areas of focus may be too high. With undergraduate enrollment in CS more than doubling in the past decade, many institutions lack adequate staff and infrastructure to address students' needs. To help newly enrolled students make better decisions with limited departmental resources, we present a first-semester, low-overhead survey course that covers a wide variety of topics. The class has been offered for five consecutive semesters by upper-class undergraduate volunteers with minimal faculty involvement. We report the format, content, and student feedback for the course. Our results suggest that such a class can provide new students with valuable guidance and better prepare them for an education in CS and EE.