2018 Backers and Hackers App Winners

The winning team for this year's Backers and Hackers is Tiffany Abernathy, Cayla Przygoda, Jaime Areheart (Backer) for their app GamersCentral, an app for gamers to get connected and discover new games. Backers and Hackers is a completely student-run initiative organized by the Entrepreneurship Club and the College of Engineering and Computing at USC. The program brings together Columbia’s entrepreneurial community and USC’s mobile app development students to transform app ideas into reality.

Second place went to Jared Gentry, Brian Griffin, and Landon Sanford (Backer) for their app 2Q, a live streaming game app that is a merge between HQ Trivia and The Bachelor, where a weekly show allows a bachelorette/bachelor to find a winner based on questions that narrow people down based on comparability, and the winning pair is offered a prize to go on a date or throw a party with a bar tab.

Third place to James Chaszar, Daniel Berry, Alexander Rusnak, and Nicole Westley(backer) for their app InGate, a horse show management app that makes for easy and instant communication between the managers of the event and the competitors and coaches. Backers&Hackers are co-organized by CSCE546, a mobile app development course at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering. The apps are developed as the final projects for the course. We are always looking for clients/backers and app ideas as final projects for next year's course . If you want an app built for you, for free, or want to collaborate with app development, please contact Dr. Hu (jianjunh A.T sc.edu)

  

New Course: CSCE 590: Introduction to Image Processing

Dear Colleagues and Students, I will be offering CSCE 590 Topics in Information Technology (Introduction to Image Processing) this summer from Jun. 25 - Aug. 5. In this course I will cover the fundament of image processing, including image representations, basic operations, convolution, correlation, histograms, and provide insights on the different areas where image processing is applicable. I am attaching the syllabus for this new course. Ioannis Rekleitis

New CSCE 350, 390, 416, 520, and 580 Sections Created for Spring 2017

We have good news regarding Course Registration and Scheduling. We have increased the capacity of several CSCE courses (by moving the courses to larger classrooms) for Spring 2017, including:
  • CSCE 350-001 (moved to Blatt PE Center 111) MWF 10:50 am – 11:40 am
  • CSCE 390-001 (moved to 300 Main B213) W 12:00 pm — 12:50 pm
  • CSCE 390-002 (moved to 300 Main B213) M 12:00 pm — 12:50 pm
  • CSCE 416 (moved to Close-Hipp 005) TR 10:05 am — 11:20 am
  • CSCE 580 (moved to 300 Main B213) TR 1:15 pm — 2:30 pm
If you requested an override due to capacity constraints for one of the sections listed above (CSCE 350, 390, 416, or 580) please go ahead and register for the section! We will soon have an update about adding a new section of CSCE 350 as well. Please stay tuned. Thank you for your patience as we continue to work to relax these capacity constraints. Update: Dec 2, 2016. 10:20am We have added more capacity by moving CSCE 520 to a larger classroom and adding a new section of CSCE 350 as follows.
  • CSCE 520 (moved to 300 Main B213) TR 11:40 am – 12:55 pm
  • CSCE 350-002 (300 Main B110) MWF 9:40 am — 10:30 am
If you requested an override due to capacity constraints for CSCE 350, 390, 416, 520, or 580 please go ahead and register for the section! Again, thank you for your patience.

CSCE 590 Courses for Spring 2017 and Course Changes

There are a couple of late changes associated with the Spring 2017 schedule:
  1. CSCE 520 will meet TR 11:40-12:55 with Dr. Fenner teaching. This was moved because there were a large number of students that needed to take it and STAT 516 which meets at the same time as 520 was originally scheduled, TR 8:30-9:45.
  2. CSCE 580 had to be moved to a different time slot to accommodate the addition of CSCE 520.
  3. CSCE 551 was cancelled, since Dr. Fenner was needed to teach CSCE 520, a required course for the CIS program. We will work on an alternative for those undergraduates that need to fulfill the CSCE 355 requirement for graduation in May 2017. You will not be prevented from graduating in May 2017 because of this cancellation. If there are graduate students that can graduate before Spring 2018 we will also work on ways that you can get CSCE 551.
Here are descriptions of the topics courses that we are offering in Spring 2017. Strategic Management of Information Systems, CSCE 590 Section 001 MWF 1:10-2:00, Thatcher Course Description: This course examines the strategic management and use of information systems (IS) in organizations. Topics include strategic use of IS resources, business value of IS, organizational impacts of IS, IS and the design of work, IS and business process management, IS sourcing, IS governance, IS project management, and business intelligence. Web Scraping CSCE 590 Section 002 TR 8:30-9:45, Matthews, Course Description: This course will cover Web scraping with Python, the libraries Beautiful Soup and NLTK (the Natural Language Toolkit), and the Selenium (Web Driver) for automating the process of interacting with browsers. Mobile App Development, CSCE 590 Section 004, TR 1:15-2:30, Hu, Course Description: This course will cover the Development of mobile applications, including user interface design for mobile, local and cloud data storage techniques, and application architectures.

Freshmen not Ready for Calculus can Take Pre-Calculus Instead

Incoming freshmen who are not ready for calculus can start by taking a pre-calculus class on their first-semester freshman year instead.

We recommend that students who feel they are not ready for Calculus take the pre-calculus class first. It is better to take the extra class than to get a D or F in MATH 141/122.

Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) majors can take MATH 115 "Precalculus Mathematics" their first semester, then take MATH 141, then MATH 142. We have posted special curriculum sheets for the CS major and the CE major (look for "MATH 115 version") which show a recommended course progression starting with MATH 115.

Computer Information System (CIS) majors can take MATH 111 "Basic College Mathematics" their first semester, then take MATH 122. We have a special curriculum sheet for the CIS major (look for "MATH 111 version") which shows a recommend course progression starting with MATH 111. Note that, CIS students who think they might change their major to CS or CE will want to take MATH 115 instead, as it is a pre-req for MATH 141 which is required for CS and CE.

No More Upper/Lower Level Division

The CSE department has eliminated the upper-level/lower-level distinction. So, you no longer have to fill out the form to move to upper-level. The new rules will appear in the upcoming Fall 2016 USC Bulletin.

Advisement Summer and Fall 2015

Advisement for the Summer and Fall 2015 semesters will run March 16 to 27. All students must be advised before they can register for classes. We have published a new class offering schedule plan which shows which future semesters we plan to offer each of the required major classes. Use it to plan your future schedule. You can find your advisor's name by going to my.sc.edu and login in by clicking on "Sign in to Self Service Carolina (SSC)". Then go to "Student Records", then "View Student Information". Or, you can drop by Student Services. Make sure that you satisfy all the prereqs of the classes that you plan to take. If you sign up for a class that for which you don't have prereqs you will be dropped from it early in the semester. This is a pain. If you believe you don't need the prereqs discuss it with your advisor. If he or she agrees then you can fill out a Request for Prereq Waiver. If that request is approved they you can take the class. If a class is full by the time you try to sign up for it, fill out our Override Request form and we will try to increase the class size so you can sign up. Some deadlines to remember:
  1. If you are a second-semester Sophomore then you must file an upper division form with Student Services.
  2. If you are a second-semester Junior then you should do a Senior check at Student Services, to check that you will have all the classes required to graduate.
  3. If you will graduate at the end of this semester then you must turn in your Application for Degree at Student Services.
Dr. O'Kane has made some nice graphs that capture the various class prereqs.

Tutoring Available in Swearingen for CSCE, MATH, and Other Classes

The tutoring is in the cube near Swearingen’s Assembly Street (Sonic) entrance. We have greater math coverage than before as well as some key courses in several engineering, computing and science areas. The schedule is also posted around several bulletin boards in our buildings. The tutors are hired and paid by the Student Success Center with an attempt to align their abilities with our degree programs. Many are our majors. This is non-remedial, drop-in tutoring. A place to ask another student for help with a problem. Appointment-based tutoring is also available in the Student Success Center in the T-Coop library. Spring 2015 Schedule Swearingen Tutoring Center, Room 1A31
  • CHEM 111: T 3 – 5
  • CHEM 333: M 2 – 4
  • CSCE 145: M 3-6, T 4-6, W 3-6
  • CSCE 146, 211, 212, 240, 350: M 4-6, T 4-6, W 3-6
  • ELCT 101, 102, 221, 222: M 3 – 6, T 4 – 6
  • MATH 111, 115, 122: M 2-6, T 3-6, W 4-6
  • MATH 141: M 2-6, T 3-6, W 3-6
  • MATH 142: M 3-6, T 3-6, W 3-6
  • MATH 241: T 3 – 5, W 3 – 6
  • MATH 374, 526: W 3 – 6
  • PHYS 201, 202: T 3 – 5, W 3 - 6
  • PHYS 211: T 2 – 4, W 3 – 6
  • PHYS 212: W 3 – 6
  • ECIV 200, EMCH 200, EMCH 260: T 2 – 4
  • STAT 509: W 3 – 6