University of Houston Clear Lake - Department of Computing Sciences

The University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) is a Hispanic-serving institution located in the high tech community of Clear Lake, near NASA Johnson Space Center, with a current enrollment of 8,677 students. Computer Science (CS) is the largest program in the College of Science and Engineering at UHCL with a total enrollment of 466 (217 undergrad and 249 grad students). 95% of the undergraduate CS students at UHCL are domestic students coming from surrounding high schools and community colleges.

The CS program at UHCL has been accredited by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) since 2002. The CS faculty have kept the curriculum up-to-date by continuously incorporating new and mature technologies into the curriculum while staying abreast of current guidelines from various national organizations. Two of the newly developed courses are Computer Science I (CS1) and Computer Science II (CS2).These are 4-credit-hour courses where students work on programming assignments in teams during the class with the help of peer-mentors present in the classroom. As to teaching cybersecurity, we currently offer a Computer Security course as an elective, and the Operating Systems course has a security component. Our ultimate goal of revamping the CS curriculum, although beyond the scope of this 3-year project, is to incorporate cybersecurity throughout the core courses, starting from CS1, in an organized way so that the components in subsequent courses are built on the knowledge and training acquired in the previous courses.

The UHCL Computer Science degree program emphasizes on the development of core skills, analytical abilities necesary to specify, design and develop computer based solutions to complex systems and problems. With renowned faculty, extensive instruction is provided in software and hardware principles; in scientific, industrial and commercial applications; and in the supporting mathematical tools. The mission of the department is to prepare students for productive careers in computing by providing an excellent and diverse environment for learning, research, and practice of computing theories, computer applications and software development.