Integrating CS into other fields, so that other fields don’t feel threatened: Interview with Jane Prey

I really enjoyed the interview in the last SIGCSE Bulletin with Jane Prey.  Her reason for doing more to integrate CS into other disciplines, at the undergraduate level, is fascinating — one I hadn’t heard before.

Other fields are nervous because they think we’re taking so many students from them, and universities are nervous because they’re afraid of losing us to industry. I would hate to lose any other faculty position to add a CS professor. I really believe it’s important for computing professionals to be well-rounded, to be able to appreciate what they learned in history, biology, and anthropology classes. We need to do a better job of integrating more of a student’s educational experiences. For example, how do we do more work together with the education schools? We just aren’t there. We have to work cross-disciplines to develop a path forward, even though it’s really hard.