Do not send your child to Pomona if they are interested in a CS degree. The major is not guaranteed

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08/25/2023 14:03

Subject: Do not send your child to Pomona if they are interested in a CS degree. The major is not guaranteed

quote

Anonymous

This is for Pomona College (LAC), not Cal Poly Pomona.

The department has a crisis right now with only 6 faculty members for 85 declared majors amongst the junior class (out of 414 total students). In the past, everyone who showed a commitment to signing up (called a PERM) for the first two required courses early on was guaranteed to be allowed to major. Now they're saying that this is not enough; there may simply not be enough room to get in, despite semesters of proactive interest. This is the notice they've circulated.

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"For years we have been trying to “organically” limit computer science majors by limiting the number of seats for potential majors in our intro class (CS51). It’s not working; we currently have 85 declared computer science majors in the junior class (not including a handful of transfer students). This is not tenable for any department at Pomona, let alone a department of our size (currently 6 tenure-track faculty who are teaching and a 7th joining in January).

We are changing how we handle enrollment in CS51 and will also be explicitly limiting the number of students that can major in CS via CS54 enrollment. This will likely impact many students, particularly current sophomores and incoming first-year students, so I wanted to share a message broadly. I’ve tried to highlight the process and changes below, but the biggest implication is that there will be students (likely quite a few) that want to major in CS that cannot.

To major in CS, students need to take CS54 by the end of their sophomore year (though ideally earlier). We will be limiting the number of majors in two ways:

* CS51 will have a fixed number of seats for each class year that students can enroll in during pre-enrollment. Students that do not get in will need to try again the next semester. We will no longer be prioritizing students that PERMed previous semesters. If a student does not take CS51 by the fall of their sophomore year, they will not be able to major in CS. Note that students cannot take an intro to CS class at another institution (e.g., over the summer or at one of the other 5Cs).

* CS54 (the second course in our intro sequence) will be PERM-only and will have a fixed number of seats each semester available for first and second year students. If there are more students that meet the prerequisites that want to take CS54 than the number of seats available, we will randomly fill the seats. Students that are not selected will not be able to take CS54 (either that semester or in the future) and will not be able to major or minor in CS**.** Students that are selected will be able to continue into CS62 and declare the major or continue to take upper division classes without declaring (e.g., for the minor).

We strongly believe that computer science and computational thinking are an important part of a liberal arts education and hope to find ways for all students to find some exposure. CS51 will continue to have seats reserved for all years and we hope that any student that wants to take at least one CS class will be able to while at Pomona. Also, as part of this process we are trying to better support the minor. If students enroll in CS54, we will continue to allow them to take additional CS classes regardless of whether or not they declare the major.

As you advise students who are potential CS majors, my two main pieces of advice would be:

* They should try and take CS51 as soon as they can (but be prepared to have to try to get in multiple semesters).

* Have a backup major in case they are not able to major in CS.

We are extremely sad to have to turn away students from CS and we don’t do this lightly or without extensive discussion."