From kolaitis@cse.ucsc.edu Tue Jan 26 02:31 EST 1999
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Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:31:31 -0800
From: "Phokion G. Kolaitis" <kolaitis@cse.ucsc.edu>
Message-Id: <199901260531.VAA00794@sundance.cse.ucsc.edu>
To: kolaitis@cse.ucsc.edu, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: Re: final year projects
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Dear Ruy,

A high-level description of our undergraduate programs can be
found at http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/Students/index.html
Now, I should tell you in the US the requirements for
graduation tend to be quite different than most
European countries, since students typically spend
more than 1/3 of their time taking courses outside
their major field of study (do that they develop
what is usually called a "liberal arts" education).
My university, however, has a "comprehensive exit" requirement.
It can be satisfied by one of three ways:
(1) students have to take and pass a comprehensive exam
with questions from several upper-division CS courses.
For this, we have developed a database of questions
and the exam is made up of similar questions (the
students know in advance the questions in the database,
but of course the actual questions change from year to year).
(2) students must take and score in the top 50% of the GRE
exam in CS (a nationwide standardized multiple choice test).
(3) students may write a senior thesis.

The first option is the most common one; the third one
is very rarely used (in fact, we ask the students to
first take the comprehensive exam and only do a senior
thesis if they are interested in graduating with honors).
Individual faculty have the responsibility of supervising
and deciding on the senior thesis.

I hope this gives you some idea. Please feel free to
ask me if you have further questions.

Best,

Phokion