Over on the bird site, Graeme Smith and others are disparaging the notion of #QuantumComputing degrees, at least for undergraduates. I disagree. I may have to step into that conversation...
Not to talk behind Graeme's back, but I think will originate my argument here and copy or reference it over there.
The conversation was triggered by this Nature article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03511-7
To set the stage a little, I did my undergrad at Caltech. There was a lot of focus on *fundamentals*. From memory, at the time, Caltech had only about fifteen majors, and CS wasn't one of them. If you wanted to do CS, you majored in Engineering & Applied Science, a build-your-own-major thing that included environmental and civil engineering, as well, since they also didn't have majors.
(You could major in Ph, APh, Ma, AMa, Ge, Ay, Bi, Ch, MechE, ChemE, EE, E&AS, History, Economics or English.)
Where I now teach, at Keio's Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, there is only one "major". Everyone's degree says the same thing. (Other Keio faculties break things out into more traditional departments.) At our campus, what really matters is the kenkyuukai, or research group, that you join. Students get about a quarter of their total credits in the kenkyuukai, so it's more accurate to say that we have about 130 different majors, one per professor.
There are a lot of positive things about this system and a few major drawbacks, but that's a topic for a different time.
More relevant to today's #quantumcomputing discussion, the ACM's computing curricula include recommendations for seven different undergrad majors in computing alone: CS, CE, SE, IT, IS and the recently added Cybersecurity and Data Science.
https://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recommendations
Data science, bioinformatics, and game design are interdisciplinary topics with majors in some universities.
There is a legitimate discussion about whether those are two specialized for undergrad, with the specialization postponed to graduate school.
The same can be said for quantum; is an undergrad degree warranted, or is it too specialized?
Without some discussion of the degree focus and content, careers for which it prepares students, and how it is communicated, it's impossible to say.
Note that so far I haven't even said whether we are talking about quantum hardware, software, information or communication. There is a lot of breadth within quantum, and the focus will determine careers and flexibility.
@rdviii To me this is the crucial question. As we discussed in another thread, it seems like if you want to treat quantum computation in abstract, so basically quantum software, then that seems quite plausible as an undergraduate degree. The other foci you mention seem like they potentially require a lot more of the physics background or at least a similar set of mathematical methods. So I find myself essentially imagining an undergrad physics curriculum and thinking what can be omitted and what can it be replaced with to create a curriculum with each focus.
@rdviii I guess that sort of exposes two important boundary conditions of such a thought experiment:
1. What proportion of bespoke courses do you assume you can create versus building a sequence out of existing courses from other majors?
2 . How many hours are expected to be spent on classes in the major within the degree? (Since this can differ pretty radically between schools/countries.)
@internic those are good questions, and you're right, they vary both with the school and with the program design. So a blanket condemnation of quantum programs is unwarranted.
@internic See, I'm an engineer, so I think in terms of, "Okay, starting from a CE curriculum, what could we do without in order to make a slot or two for physics and math (above the most basic)?"
But that's no good either, and that's kinda the point. Rather than starting from an existing curriculum and negotiating some minor tweaks, we need to take a comprehensive view of what's really needed, prioritize it, make sure prereqs are covered, even if we don't cram everything we want into it.