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Declaring a CS Minor

Barnard students can declare a minor only once they have all of the required courses completed or in progress, and this must be done by March 1 of the senior year.

Students with no background in computer science may wish to take COMS BC1016 Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science (3pts) and corequisite lab COMS BC1017 (1pt), though it is not required and does not count towards the minor.

Requirements

The minor in Computer Science requires six courses, as follows:

  1. COMS W1004 Intro to CS and Programming in Java (3pts)
  2. COMS W3134 Data Structures (3pts) or COMS W3137 Honors Data Structures and Algorithms (4pts)
  3. COMS W3203 Discrete Mathematics (4pts)
  4. One of the following three courses: COMS W3157 Advanced Programming (4pts); COMS W3261 Computer Science Theory (3pts); or CSEE W3827 Fundamentals of Computer Systems (3pts)
  5. Any 3000-level or 4000-level COMS/CSXX/XXCS course of at least 3 points
  6. Any 3000-level or 4000-level COMS/CSXX/XXCS course of at least 3 points or one linear algebra, probability, or statistics course from the following: APMA E3101, APMA E2101, MATH UN2010, MATH UN2015, IEOR E3658, STAT UN1201, or STAT GU4001

Double-Counting Courses for a Major and Minor

Courses for a major and minor may not overlap, with the following exception:

  • The minor department chair can grant an exception for a maximum of two overlapping courses if the minor requires more than 18 credits, the major requires more than 40 credits, and the overlapping courses are explicitly required for both. 

If you think this may apply to you and would like to request consideration of an exception, please email inquiry-cs@barnard.edu noting the explicit course above in question (i.e., one of COMS W1004, COMS W3134/3137, or COMS W3203) as well as the major you wish to have a course double counted for and point to the requirements for that major that show the same class as being explicitly required. The other courses in the CS minor have other options you can take instead, so the exception does not apply and you must instead take an extra course as a replacement in either the CS minor or your major in order to meet the requirements for both. You can discuss replacement options with your major adviser (for the major) or the CS chair (for the minor).

Declaring the Minor

To declare Computer Science as a minor, submit the minor election form in Slate at the link below.

https://slate.barnard.edu/register/minor_election

Questions? If you have any questions, please contact the Barnard CS Department Administrator at inquiry-cs@barnard.edu.