Scientific Computing

Department Website:
https://www.haverford.edu/scientific-computing

Many disciplines in the natural and social sciences include a significant sub-discipline that is explicitly computational. Examples include astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, and physics. In some fields, such as biology, the use of computation has become so widespread that basic literacy in computation is increasingly important and may soon be required.

The Concentration in Scientific Computing gives students an opportunity to develop a basic facility with the tools and concepts involved in applying computation to a scientific problem, and to explore the specific computational aspects of their own major disciplines.

Learning Goals

As students progress through the curriculum, they will:

• learn to read, write, and debug code in at least one programming language, using idioms appropriate to the major field of study.
• apply computational reasoning to a broad set of problems.
• learn tools and concepts required to computationally approach scientific problems within the discipline of their major.
• appreciate trade-offs and limitations of computational approaches to problem solving (e.g., accuracy vs. computation time, approximations needed to make real-world problems calculable, numerical errors inherent to computations themselves).

Haverford’s Institutional Learning Goals are available on the President’s website, at http://hav.to/learninggoals.

Curriculum

Three of the six courses required for the concentration focus on general issues of computing (see Requirements A and B below): two of these serve as an introduction to computer science and programming, and the third focuses on the use of computation within a specific scientific discipline. Students then choose the remaining three courses from a list of electives (see Requirement C), using at least two to connect their computational work with their major (recall that 2-3 courses for a concentration must also count toward the student’s major). Finally, the student must also complete a project-based experience, possibly during the completion of one of the courses (Requirement D).

Students majoring in astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, mathematics, and physics should consult the relevant sections of the Catalog for information about the relationship of this concentration to their courses of study.

Given the abundance of math, physics, chemistry, and computer science courses listed under Requirements B and C, students with these majors should have no problem choosing courses (though one of the coordinators of the concentration should be consulted during this selection). Example “Requirement C” tracks for majors in astronomy, biology, chemistry, and economics are available, but a student may of course choose other courses (in consultation with one of the coordinators).