Greetings!

Greetings and welcome to the web site of the Computer Science Department of Canisius College. We are a vibrant and growing department that offers several bachelors degrees in Computer Science, preparing students for work or further study.

Computer Science is growing very rapidly and employment prospects are the rosiest in twenty years. With the Year 2000 problem looming, many companies are hiring extra people right now. But analysts predict that even beyond 2000, there will be 10% fewer people than needed to fill information technology jobs. Canisius College helps you enter this exciting and lucrative profession by providing you with an education that will last a lifetime.

The Computer Science Department at Canisius College offers two degree programs that prepare students for either graduate school or a job in the computer industry. Course work includes programming, information organization, distributed computing, computing theory, software engineering, and up-to-date electives. Professionalism, ethical computing and decision-making, and writing and communication skills are essential to all computer scientists and are emphasized throughout the curriculum.

The Bachelor of Science major is designed for students with a scientific interest who intend to continue on to graduate school or enter the profession as research or systems programmers. This program of study places a greater emphasis on mathematics and physics.

The Bachelor of Arts major is designed to satisfy the needs of individuals who are interested in combining their studies with course work in another area. Students have taken concentrations in business, psychology, communication studies, and religious studies. Students can use the concentration and free electives to complete any of the minors from other academic departments.

Our department also offers two minors in Computer Science for those who wish to major in another field but are still interested in computing technology. A newly approved Certificate in Computer Science bridges the gap between the minor and the major. You take more CS courses for the certificate but do not have to fulfil the math and science requirements. However, you must major in another field. Details about the curriculum can be found either in the college catalog or on these web pages.

Scholarships are available to qualified students. Both majors and minors, as well as those enrolled in the certificate program, can apply for grants ranging from $500 to $2000 per academic year per student.

The department is supported by college wide laboratories as well as special computer science laboratories specifically for department courses. Courses are taught by a highly qualified faculty and staff who are very interested in working with students for them to achieve their potential. The number of computer science majors and minors is large enough for diversity among students but small enough for personal attention. There are also weekly seminars on current topics.

Our students, especially Computer Science majors, are encouraged to take an active part in the life of the department and one way to do this is to make their own Web home pages. To learn how to post your own web page, click here. To learn about basic HTML, visit this link.

Here are the courses currently being taught in the Spring, 1999 semester. Some of them have on-line material:
  • CSC 110 -- Introduction to Computing (AS VII course)
  • CSC 111 -- Introduction to Programming (AS VII course)
  • CSC 213 -- Large Scale Programming
  • CSC 281 -- Automata and Algorithms
  • CSC 395 -- Software Engineering
  • CSC 400 -- Special Topics: Java
  • CSC 391,491 -- Computer Science Seminar

We also have a wide variety of information on-line about UNIX and various programming languages, especially those used in our curriculum. To read the UNIX tutorials click on it. If you would like to read about programming languages click on that.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call us at (716) 888-2430 or send email ( mfoster@canisius.edu). You can also fill out the more information form.