Non-Majors | Courses | CSE Department at the OSU
Computing Courses for Students in Any Major
Computing impacts all aspects of modern life. No matter what your
chosen academic discipline, OSU offers courses to help you unlock the power of
computing in your context. This webpage provides a portal to classes for
beginners or more advanced students in any discipline.
Undergraduate Students Graduate Students
A note about CSE Department course prerequisites The courses listed as prerequisites on each course's syllabus page provide an indication of the material that students are expected to have mastered before enrolling in the course. It is not necessary to have taken that exact course at OSU. If you have questions about the prerequisites for a course you would like to take, contact the instructor before enrolling.
Undergraduate Students
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Basic Computer Skills for Any Major
These introductory courses provide basic skills for students with limited or no previous computer experience. They require minimal or no prerequisites, and do not teach programming.
- Learn the basics of computer technology in CSE 100. This course is also available via distance learning.
- Learn to use office productivity tools in CSE 101. This is a GEC course.
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Computing in Your Discipline
- Arts and Entertainment
For students with an interest in digital art, entertainment, interactive media, and electronic/computer games, we offer two entry-level courses:
- Create interactive games and animations in CSE 203. This is a GEC course.
- Manipulate digital images and sound in CSE 204. This is a GEC course.
Advanced students can continue with courses on Animation, Computer Game Development, Data Visualization, Interactive Graphics, Computer Vision for Human-Computer Interaction, and Speech Recognition and Synthesis.
- Business and Information Security
Students interested in computing and data management for business can start with these courses:
- Learn software tools such as spreadsheets and databases in CSE 200.
- Learn elementary programming using the Java language in CSE 201.
Advanced students can continue with courses that focus on Data Organization, Data Management and Reporting, Information Security, Systems Analysis, Databases, Network Security, and Data Mining.
- Engineers and Scientists
Gain basic programming skills for computational science in our two-course sequence:
- Learn basics of C++ programming in CSE 202.
- Continue with object-oriented programming with C++ in CSE 230.
- As an alternative to CSE 230, or if you've learned imperative programming in any language other than C++, learn object-oriented programming using Java in CSE 502.
Advanced students can continue with courses on Numerical Methods, High-Performance Computing, Parallel Computing, and Artificial Intelligence.
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Learn a Specific Programming Language
If your major area relies on a certain programming language, such as Perl
or C, we offer enhancement classes that highlight a particular language. The CSE 459 series includes 1-credit hour courses for
a variety of languages.
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Minor in Computer Science
Build solid knowledge of computing fundamentals by adding a CIS Minor to your degree plan.
Graduate Students
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Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Applied Software Engineering
Graduate students who want to build solid skills in developing multi-component software should consider
the GIS in Applied Software Engineering.
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Build Programming Skills
Graduate students with no programming background are recommended to take either CSE 201 or CSE 202 as a first programming course. A course in object-oriented programming, such as CSE 230 or CSE 502, is also recommended.
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Enhance your Programming Skills
If your primary discipline has a heavy focus on a certain programming language, such as Perl
or C, we offer enhancement classes that highlight the specific strengths of a particular language. The CSE 459 series includes courses for
a variety of languages. They are only 1 credit hour each, so they are easy to work into your degree program. If writing software is a focus for you, our course on Algorithms and Data Structures is also recommended.
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Classes for Specialized Interests
Our department offers advanced courses in many specialty areas of interest to graduate students. See the list of Faculty Research Topics for an idea of the full range. The areas highlighted below are listed here because they offer an entry-point course for non-CS students with only intermediate programming abilities.
- Animation and Interactive Media: CSE 581
Is the entry-point for the arts and electronic media sequence.
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Visualizing Information Using Computer Graphics: Introduction
to Visualization Is a new course targeted at students from other
majors who want to learn computer graphics for visualization.
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Artificial Intelligence: The
Introductory AI Course covers basic techniques in inferential and
heuristic decision-making, as well as a brief introduction to machine
learning.
