Technical Writing Program (Computer Science)
Director
The Program
Technical writers express scientific concepts and their applications clearly and precisely. The Program in Technical Writing (Computer Science) links the Department of English’s offerings in expository writing with courses from the Department of Computer Science and culminates in an internship.
Requirements
Admission
To be eligible for the program, matriculated students must be working toward the BA or BS degree in any department and must submit for evaluation two five-page essays from college courses. Non-matriculated students interested in the program should consult the program director. The level of writing required for the program is “professional” in quality, higher than that required by the CLA/CSM Writing Proficiency Examination.
For matriculated students, successful completion of the program is recorded on official University transcripts when they have met all graduation requirements. Non-matriculated students receive a certificate of completion.
Courses
Students admitted to the program take the following sequence of courses:
ENGL 306 (Advanced Composition) or ENGL 307 (Writing for the Print Media)
CS 110 (Introduction to Computing)*
CS 210 (Intermediate Computing with Data Structures)
CS 240 (Programming in C)
An elective in communication, English, mathematics, or computer science, to be approved by the program director.
ENGL 476 (Technical Writing Internship)
*Please see the “Computer Science” section of this publication for complete information on prerequisites for this course. In the internship, students work on actual technical writing assignments, and will be supervised in the same manner as are new employees. The internship allows students to adapt their training in writing and computer science to working conditions: the pressures of deadlines, the requirements of clients or supervisors, and above all, the indeterminacies of new and complex information.
Transfer Credit Policy
Two courses can be transferred into the program.
Further Information
Further information about the program is available from the Department of English.