Prospective Students
The Computer Science website is currently under development. Please check back regularly for updates, to see what new events are happening at the University of Kentucky!
What research facilities will be available to me as a student in CS at UK?
What are the admission requirements for the Computer Science department?
What are the graduation requirements for a Computer Science major?
How to schedule a visit to the College, the Computer Science department and the University?
What is Computer Science?
Computer Science is the study of computers and programming languages. Programming languages are used to write software, like word processors, web browsers, image viewers, databases and video games. Although now considered a field of its own, Computer Science is closely related to both Mathematics and Linguistics - programming languages are very much like "regular" languages in that they have their own grammar (rules governing the use of a language) and semantics (how meaning is expressed through the grammar). If you are good at math and languages and you'd like to build programs that make computers work, Computer Science may be the major for you!
What can I do with a major in CS?
An undergraduate major in Computer Science will open you to a future of options. You could:
* be a software developer
* make video games
* work in telecommunications
* go into business - either working for a corporation, or as an entrepreneur
* develop technologies for libraries
* develop technologies for medicine
Computers are becoming a major part of every field, and with a degree in Computer Science you will be able to work in any field.
Why Should I Study CS at UK?
There are many reasons to choose Computer Science at the University of Kentucky. What are our top 5?
Top Five Reasons For Studying Computer Science at the University of Kentucky
1. Access to Research and Facilities
2. Focus on Creativity
Students at UK CS use their creativity to solve real-world problems.
3. Focus on Learning
Students at UK CS don't only learn programming languages and practices, they learn how to learn them.
4. Focus on Practice
The focus of the UK CS program is on practice rather than on theory. This means that students are encouraged to use technologies, not only to think about them.
5. Breadth as well as Depth
UK has a broader range of degree programs than all but four other institutions in the United States, from agriculture to medicine to design. CS students work in many different realms to use the skills and education they get from computer science, applying their knowledge to real-world problems in other fields. There are several ways to take advantage of the breadth of studies available at UK. Students can double-major in CS and another field, major in CS and minor in other fields, or major in other fields and minor in CS.
6. Good Value
This is actually six, but it is worth mentioning that the University of Kentucky Computer Science program, even with the recent rise in tuition costs, is still an excellent value for the money.
What research facilities will be available to me as a student in CS at UK?
The Computer Science department has many research groups and labs available to undergraduate students.
Facilities include:
Computer Science Multilab
The MultiLab has 30 (2.7GHz Intel P4, 256MB, 30GB) and two compute servers (3.4GHz Intel Pentium Dx2, 4GB, 160GB). All computers are dual booting, running both Linux and Windows XP.
CSLAB Sun Workstation Lab
The CSLAB includes Apple Workstations and is available to all undergraduate Computer Science majors.
Hands-on Lab
The Hands-on lab has 16 workstations (1.5GHz Intel P4, 128MB, 20GB). Each instructional lab has associated servers that provide file service to the computers via NFS (Linux) and Samba (Windows). All computers are dual booting, running both Linux and Windows XP.
Active research groups in the department include:
Laboratory for Advanced Networking
Laboratory for High Performance Scientific Computing and Computer Simulation
There are three research groups in the HiPSCCS Lab:
* Parallel and scientific computing group;
* Computer simulation and modeling group;
* Data mining and information retrieval group.
Metaverse Lab
The Metaverse is an immersive environment supported by multimedia systems that use imagery, sound, and physical interactions to fool the users' senses into believing that traditional barriers of space and time have been removed.
Logic and Artificial Intelligence Lab
We are interested in logic-based artificial intelligence. Our research centers on foundations of nonmonotonic reasoning systems such as default logic and logic programming with stable model semantics.
Multilevel, dynamic data-driven application simulation (ML-DDDAS)
The multilevel, dynamic data-driven application simulation (ML-DDDAS) group is focused on multigrid methods, hardware assisted (i.e., cache aware) multigrid methods, and DDDAS.
Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments
Through research, education, and external partnerships, it is the mission of the Center to enable new visualization technologies and to advance the art of immersive visualization by addressing the scientific and engineering challenges related to visual simulations and virtual environments.
What are the admission requirements for the Computer Science department?
In order to be admitted to the Computer Science department at the University of Kentucky, students should have a history of success in high school mathematics. If courses in statistics or computer science are available in your high school, you should have those on your transcript as well.
Computer Science is a department within the College of Engineering. In order to be accepted as a computer science major, you need to be accepted into the College of Engineering as well. The admission process for the College is quite selective.
Minimum criteria include one of the following:
* ACT math score of 23 or higher
* SAT math score of 510 or higher
* 3 or above on the Calculus AB portion of the Advanced Placement Exam
* Eligible for MA 110 based on result of the UK Math Department Placement Exam
* Completion of or the equivalent of MA 110 Analytic Geometry and Trigonometry with a grade of C or higher
* Completion of or the equivalent of MA 109 - College Algebra and MA 112 - Trigonometry with a grade of C or higher
What are the graduation requirements for a Computer Science major?
Undergraduate majors in computer science are required to take a full slate of courses including pre-engineering courses in mathematics and physics, as well as introductory computer science; additional required courses in computer science, physics, mathematics, communications, and statistics; three upper-level courses in Computer Science; and 12 additional credit hours in a combination of computer science, mathematics and electrical engineering. Students must also require the University's University Studies requirements. See Computer Science Major Requirements for a complete description, including course numbers and names.
Student, Faculty and Alumni Highlights
Student Highlights:
Kevin Mathias, Casey Lengacher, Austin Cornett, and Kendra Renee Gehlbach, all from the "Planning under uncertainty with constraints" project supervised by Drs. Alex Dekhtyar and Judy Goldsmith, presented a demo at AAAI in July, "Factored MDP Elicitation and Plan Display."
Faculty Highlights:
Dr. Tony Baxter has been working with the UK Medical Center (Kentucky Correctional Health Services Network) and CorrectCare (a private health management company) to streamline their health care delivery system. This has involved building data management systems to track medical expenses, diverting medical services to cost-effective medical networks (notably the UK Medical Center), and implementing systems to audit medical claims. Savings to the state have been significant and were estimated at $8-10 million the first year. As of July 2006 a fully-functional electronic medical records system has been installed at all state correctional facilities.
Dr. Jane Hayes gave an invited presentation of "Software Engineering: A Personal Perspective," to the Georgetown College Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Student Chapter Meeting, April 2006.
Dr. Ruigang Yang received a two-year grant titled "Wide-Area Rapid Iris Image Capture with Pan-Tilt-Zoom Cameras" for $731,827 from US Department of Homeland Security.
Alumni Highlights:
Joanna Lio '01, Producer, EA Games (for Sims 2)
Matt Cutts '95, Senior Software Engineer, Google
Chris Gambrell '91, Software Architect, IBM
Malissa Sullivan '95, Advisory Software Engineer, IBM
Laura Fox '02, IT Specialist, IBM
Rob Fox '99, Senior IT Specialist, IBM