The Learning Disconnect: How to Improve the UVA Computer Science Curriculum to Create More Effective Engineers; The Equifax Data Breach: An Actor-Network Theory Approach

As the software engineering landscape shifts and changes, the teaching format the University of Virginia (UVA) uses fails to change with it. To close this gap, I suggest connecting the soft skills and thinking frameworks taught in class to hard skills used in industry. I propose splitting UVA’s Computer Science curriculum into two distinct focuses: Computer Science (CS) and Software Engineering (SE). Though perhaps it should not be its own major, software engineering should be treated as its own subsection of computer science and as with other engineering majors, specific programs should be taught along with more nebulous skills, like how to read and process documentation. I anticipate students being more willing to learn and more receptive to teaching. In the future, I recommend creating a concrete plan for splitting Computer Science into multiple disciplines.
In September 2017, Equifax, a consumer credit reporting agency, announced that their IT systems had been breached and the personal information of 148 million American clients had been breached, including names, Social Security Numbers (SSNs), birth dates, addresses, and drivers’ license numbers. The announcement from Equifax, which came too little too late, came as a shock to the half of the American population it affected – not to mention the many overseas customers who it also impacted. However, though the breach happened in the blink of an eye to its victims, it was the result of professional incompetence, geopolitical conflict, and the increasing lack of ownership customers have over their own data.
Cybersecurity combines people and technology to create a complex problem that affects billions of people around the world. Most of those people are non-experts that are forced to trust the systems they use, the people that design them, and the bodies that govern them to have their best interests in mind. It is up to institutions like the University of Virginia to train its students to not only be technical experts, but practitioners of ethical engineering. By refining its curriculum, UVA could create not only better technical experts, but more ethical engineers. Through the study of the failures of other institutions, UVA students can help shape the cybersecurity landscape to better protect its inhabitants.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Technical Advisor: Briana Morrison

STS Advisor: Joshua Earle