Putting computer engineering and computer science programs together — The case of AlBaha university

Abstract

In the universities where undergraduate Computer Engineering (CE) and Computer Science (CS) programs are offered, people often wrongly argue that the CE program should be offered under College of Engineering instead of under the college where CS program is offered, this is mostly because they think CE program has “Engineering” word in it. This school of thought does not realize that by this, it will take CE program apart from CS program, which will break the natural alliance of both of these programs. In this paper, this natural alliance of CE and CS programs is discussed, which gives strong argument that both CE and CS programs should be put together under the same college. To further support these arguments of putting CE and CS programs together, the best practices adopted in this regards by the top 10 universities in KSA, USA, UK and other European Universities are studied and results are provided to prove that CE and CS programs should be put together under the same college. Since, this is the current debate at AlBaha University in Saudi Arabia (KSA), therefore the case of AlBaha University is presented to settle the argument.