Discrete Math/Structures in CS

At FIU, Computer Science majors cover discrete structures in a math department course MAD-2104 that is offered to students in all majors. This is counter to current practice around the country and in Florida with no evident justification of success based on student learning and performance.

This page describes how discrete math / discrete structures is taught in CS departments at twenty-five other universities in a manner that integrates CS topics and sometimes programming projects into the curriculum.

SCIS proposes a new course COT-3100 Discrete Structures (click for syllabus) which would be a required course for CS or IT majors (the existing MAD-2104 and MAD-1100 requirements would also be an allowed alternative, as is the case at UCF). We believe this will bring us in line with national norms, make the material more accessible for our majors, thus reducing excess credit hours, increase graduation rates, provide additional opportunities for discussion of difficult programming topics such as recursion, and two-dimensional arrays and loops, and also embrace the university's request to use more open source materials.

US News and World Report Top Ten CS Programs

Rankings

  1. Carnegie Mellon University: 15-354 Computational Discrete Math (online text)
  2. MIT: 6.042 Mathematics for Computer Science and open courseware. (online text)
  3. Stanford University: CS-103 Mathematical Foundations of Computing and also CME 305 Discrete Mathematics and Algorithms (online text)
  4. UC Berkeley: CS-70 Discrete Mathematics and Probability Theory (online text)
  5. University of Illinois: CS-173 Discrete Structures (online text)
  6. Cornell University: CS-2800 Discrete Structures (Rosen)
  7. University of Washington: CSE-311 Foundations of Computing (Rosen)
  8. Princeton University: CS 340 Reasoning About Computation (elective) (none)
  9. Georgia Tech: CS-2050 Introduction to Discrete Math for Computer Science (Rosen)
  10. UT Austin: CS-311 Discrete Math for Computer Science (none)

Additional US Universities in World Rankings

  1. Harvard: CS-20 Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science (online MIT materials)
  2. UC San Diego: CSE-20 Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science (Rosen)

COT-3100 In Florida SUS

Note: FGCU and NSF do not offer CS degree programs.

  1. University of Central Florida: COT-3100 Discrete Mathematics (Rosen)
  2. University of West Florida: COT-3100 Discrete Structures
  3. University of Florida: COT-3100 Applications of Discrete Structures (Rosen)
  4. University of South Florida: COT-3100 Introduction to Discrete Structures (Epp)
  5. FAMU: COT-3100 Discrete Structures I
  6. University of North Florida: COT-3100 Computational Structures

Other Universities

  1. Arizona State University: CSc-245 Introduction to Discrete Structures
  2. University of Maryland: CMSC-250 Discrete Structures
  3. University of Pittsburgh: CS-441 Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
  4. Purdue University: CS-182 Foundation of Computer Science
  5. Rutgers University: CS-205 Discrete Structures I
  6. Simon Fraser University: MACM-101 Discrete Mathmatics
  7. Syracuse University: CIS-275 Introduction to Discrete Mathematics