CSCS Curriculum and Graduate Certificate Requirements

The CSCS Graduate Certificate Program requirements listed on this page reflect the experience we and our students have gained after the first few years of the program. The goals of the CSCS certificate program requirements include:

1. Students should be familiar with a minimal set of concepts and terms, some list of key people, models, and basic "complex systems phenomena." Among other things, this will serve as part of a common "language" and a basis for students to interact in meaningful ways.

2. Students should have basic math and computer modeling skills, so that they:
   - understand the uses and limits of these approaches;
   - can implement their own simple models; and
   - can understand at some minimal level 90% of the CSCS seminars.

3. Students should have more advanced skills/knowledge is some area, e.g., dynamical systems, computer modeling, or other approaches to complex systems modeling, perhaps as applied to a particular domain.

4. Overall, students should gain an appreciation for and skills at applying a complex systems approach to understanding both their own and other fields of study.

5. Promote and maintain a sense of community among students.

Students must take five courses, including the Group A course, the Group C course and at least one course from Group D. Within Group D students with weaker mathematics backgrounds should take CSCS 510; students with stronger math backgrounds should take CSCS 520 or 541. It is possible to replace the Group D course with an equivalent advanced dynamical systems course or in very special circumstances to replace the Group C course with an equivalent course, but every student must take at least one of CSCS 510 or CSCS 530. The courses in Group B represent the minimal programming and calculus background required for the courses in Groups C and D; we anticipate that most students will not need to take these courses. They do not count toward the five courses in the certificate program.

Group A

• CSCS 501: Basic Readings in Complex Systems

Group B

• CSCS 531 (Short course) Introduction to Writing C Programs
  under Linux/Unix. This will be a new, 1 credit course.
• Math 413/SPP 513: Calculus for Social Science

Group C

• CSCS 530: Computer Modeling of Complex Systems

Group D

• CSCS 510/Math 550: Introduction to Dynamical Systems for Complex Systems and the Life Sciences (revised and lengthened from its current format to include an introduction to material in CSCS 520 and 541.)
• CSCS 541/Phys 413: Physics of Complexity
• CSCS 520/Phys 580: Empirical Analysis of Nonlinear Systems

Group E

• Courses related to Complex Systems and approved for the certificate program by the CSCS Director. The linked page here is a representative list of such courses as offered in the 1999-2000 academic year.