Achievement

A major hurdle for our IGERT is providing base-line computer programming skills for biology-trained graduate students that does not require a series of undergrad level classes, yet adequately prepares them for advanced classes and interdisciplinary programming-heavy group projects. A landmark achievement is the offering of a graduate level C++ programming course for non-computer science students by the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. The course trained several students (IGERT and non-IGERT) in the basics of computer science and provided proficiency in the programming language. These students were able to take an advanced data structures course and contribute meaningfully to a programming-themed bioinformatics group project. The course is being considered for addition to the graduate catalogue and several departments have expressed interest in encouraging their students to take it.