With the growing importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in today’s digital world, one would think that educational facilities would make programs that teach such skills a priority. Unfortunately for many students and faculty at University of Florida, this is not happening. In fact, the school has announced plans to drastically cut and restructure the Computer Science department in a bid to save a cool $1.4 million.
“The school is eliminating all funding for teaching assistants in computer science, cutting the graduate and research programs entirely, and moving the tattered remnants into other departments.”
This new plan has sparked students to take to the internet to organize protests, petitions and to collect news about this fiasco. The current petition drive has over 7,000 signatures showing support for the Computer Science program.
As gamers, many of us are well aware of the importance of computer science on our hobby. Without such programs, gaming would end as new developers would be hard to find. Even outside gaming, computers are an integral part of our lives. Many of today’s advances in technology would not have happened had there not been those trained in computer science.
Unfortunately, not everyone can see things this way. Those in charge of creating this budget are looking at things from merely a budgetary stand point and are not considering the negative impact such a move will have on the future. Hopefully, the message being shared by students and faculty will get through and this decision will be reversed.
-GP Correspondent E. Zachary Knight
