Student FAQs
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The Undergraduate Advising Head (UAH) signs off on major and minor declarations, course substitutions, exemptions from requirements and so on. The current UAH is Professor Antonella Di Lillo. You can contact her by email.
If you wish to discuss declaring a major or minor, please refer to the next question and follow the directions.
Once you have declared your Computer Science major, you will be assigned a Computer Science faculty member as your academic advisor. This person can help you navigate the department, choose courses, help you review your options with your major and other Computer Science specific questions.
It should be very easy to find by following these instructions.
Placement in the introductory Computer Science courses is determined through the COSI Placement Exam and advising.
Students who believe they have taken a course equivalent to one required for the Computer Science major or minor may apply for a substitution. We will verify that your proposed substitute is indeed equivalent to the Brandeis course propose. Please apply for the substitution by submitting a substitution petition.
Course substitutions can be proposed by completing the online petition on the registrar's website.
No. Prerequisites to any given course are carefully chosen to ensure that all students taking the course have a mastery of topics that will be assumed as understood when introducing new course material. A student who wishes to take a course without having taken its prerequisite(s) must have been approved for an exemption from (each of) the prerequisite course(s).
Courses taken at other institutions must first be approved by the registrar's office and UAH before they can count for COSI elective credit. To initiate this process, please submit the online petition found on the non-Brandeis summer school site.
The COSI department follows the policies of the Math department in deciding on exemptions and substitutions for Math courses that are required for the COSI major.
The registrar's page on transferring credit from high school provides information about credit you can get from high school classes. Further down on the page is a paragraph on "how to claim" your score.
If your math courses at another university is accepted and approved for the math equivalency through the registrar, we will accept this as well. Simply email evidence of registrar approval to the UAH before filing a petition for the substitution.
See the answer to the previous question of this FAQ.
Internships are a great option for students to gain real world experience. You may receive university credit for suitable internship experience in the fall, spring or summer. While this is offered by the Computer Science department, it does not count as an elective towards a computer science major or minor.
You can find more details in the bulletin. To do this, you need to enroll in Cosi92a using this form. It requires the signature of a faculty member.
Once a professor has accepted you as a teaching assistant (TA), you can elect to receive course credit instead of getting paid. To get this credit as a TA, you need to register for a course called PEER 94a, Peer Assistantship.
Note that while Peer 94a gives you a university course credit, it does not count towards your computer science major nor count as a Cosi elective. More details can be found in the "Special Academic Opportunities" in the Bulletin.