Undergraduate CS Curricula in the U.S. and China
Xiannong Meng, Jianming Deng · 2019
Computing science and information technology are playing an increasingly important role in our economy and society. In one listing of publicly traded companies, the U.S. and China captured the top 10 spots with eight U.S. companies and two Chinese companies, all of which are tech companies. It is of great interest to examine and compare the undergraduate computing science education in the two countries. The U.S. has about 1,500 academic units that offer undergraduate computing related programs. China has 2,850 such programs. We selected 16 programs in the U.S. and eight programs in China in our study. The data collected include titles, the number and the hours of computer science courses as well as the required math, sciences, and engineering courses. We found that Chinese degree programs often require more courses in CS and math and more overall credit hours to graduate. We also found that a typical CS student in China takes more courses per semester.