1. How old is the Cornell Information Science major?

The Information Science Program began offering undergraduate majors during the 2003-2004 school year. The first graduates were the Class of 2005.

2. How many current majors are there in Information Science and Information Science, Systems, and Technology?

There are currently about 80 majors overall.

3. When applying to the major, are there any steps that can be taken to ensure that the major is right for me?

• Look over the information about our undergraduate majors.
• Send a message to major@infosci.cornell.edu . Using this address you can schedule an appointment with the Undergraduate Coordinator in 303 Upson Hall, ask questions about our majors, or request to correspond with current students.
• Check out the IS careers page to see what opportunities are out there for our graduates.

4. What is the typical course load, and how many of the major courses are electives?

The average undergraduate course load is 15 - 18 credits. IS and ISST majors can mainly expect 5-course semesters, and a few 4-course semesters. For more specific information, please browse the requirements for our majors:

B.A. in Information Science, College of Arts & Sciences*
B.S. in Information Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences*
B.S. in Information Science, Systems and Technology, College of Engineering

*Students in the B.S. and B.A. Information Science majors have the same major requirements. The degree only differs in the requirements for each college. For more information on college requirements, follow these links: College of Arts & Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, College of Engineering.

5. To what extent do the IS major courses offer hands on experience vs. traditional classroom curriculum?

There are many opportunities for both traditional classroom and project-based learning, depending on the student's interests. Courses for the major range from hands-on design of user interfaces to studying the effects of technology on society as a whole.

We encourage undergraduate research, which typically involves individual project work with a faculty member or research scientist.

6. What kind of materials and technologies are utilized in the IS major courses?

Mainly computer-based systems, including human-computer interaction, visual medias, text-based analysis, and all forms of data and knowledge based decision systems.

7. How many students are in a typical class?

It varies greatly. Large introductory courses (i.e. a programming class) may have several hundred students. Core courses in the major are smaller, ranging from slightly over 40 to under 10 students.

8. What do IS and ISST majors typically do after graduation?

The premise of the IS program is that many of the interesting problems and questions (and jobs) of the future will be concerned with the interactions between people and information systems. Thus, the undergraduate majors cover both technical issues and social science issues. Careers that involve the design and creation of interactive systems, from Web sites to mobile devices to shrink-wrap software, should all benefit from an IS degree. Particular job roles in those fields would tend to be more concerned with the design, conceptualization, and usability of such systems (often called product management) than with the technical implementation and delivery (often called software engineering). However, given the broad range of fields in which large information systems are becoming prevalent, we also see IS as helping prepare students for careers in fields that currently experience "information bottlenecks" such as health care or law.

Our major is fairly new, so we don't know exactly what percentage of students will go on to graduate study, however we expect that 30-40% of our graduates will attend graduate school.

9. Is there additional information describing IS at Cornell?

A few articles that provide additional information about the IS and ISST majors have been published.