In the Computer Architecture track, students concentrate on the hardware that forms the basis for computation. Architecture is concerned with maximizing overall system performance, often in the context of minimizing cost and power consumption. The emphasis in the College of Information and Computer Sciences is on how software interacts with low-level hardware features to achieve these goals. This track is a natural choice for a double-major in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and is also suitable for combination with any science minor or double major involving computation. It is excellent preparation for graduate studies in the field as well as careers involving performance-critical and embedded systems, such as aerospace, medical instrumentation, telecommunication, computational science, and supercomputing.
Note that for students graduating by May 2012, if CS 291SP (now called CS 230) has not been taken, then Operating Systems (377) is a required course below.