By Michelle [Shelly] Hillman
HOUGHTON, NY - The Bookmark, a tech-related resource site and blog, has named Houghton College a Top 20 Small College for Computer Science.
Eighty small computer science programs were reviewed using data regarding student-faculty ratio, average annual cost, graduation rate, and median salary 10 years after attending, provided by the National Center for Education Statistics, the Princeton Review, and the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard.
Computer science at Houghton has been marked by continuous innovation in research and teaching. When Dr. Wei Hu, professor of math and computer science, arrived at the college in 1997 Houghton was among the first colleges in the country to include Java technologies in its curriculum, providing students with a competitive edge. Today, the college is one of the first U.S. colleges to teach Scala and its use in big data analysis.
Another component of CS at Houghton is a hands-on learning approach. Each year, students have the opportunity to hone technical skills through building and updating desktop machines in the science computer lab from raw components. Many of the students work for the Technology Services Office on campus, supporting the network infrastructure or addressing computer hardware and software issues. Additionally, Hu has collaborated with students on more than 26 peer-reviewed papers, using cutting-edge computer science methods to address a wide array of topics such as HIV, breast cancer, chemo sensitivity, social media, social networks, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.
“Innovation is at the core of any college professor, college program, and any college,” remarks Hu. “The success of Houghton CS program is a proof of concept of this belief and work principle, and I spend most of my time at Houghton learning new things and finding ways to convey them through my courses and research with students.”
