I Wish There Was a Comprehensive Guide to All the Next Courses Being Offered Next Year…!!

With Maymester being (temporarily) cancelled, no finals week still being a thing, and add/drop being removed, it’s a wonder that IMSA hasn’t gone up in flames from all these new changes. However, one thing that we can look forward to is the new courses being offered next year! While most courses in departments like Math and Fine Arts remained the same, some departments saw very major changes—with one of them being the Computer Science (CS)  department. In this article, I will cover the new courses being offered by the CS department, as well as well as briefly covering any new courses in other departments. 

Computer Science

With the arrival of new staff, Mr. Daniel Campbell and Ms. Kavithaa Suresh Kumar, to the CS department, a number of new course offerings are being proposed as a result. Ms. Kumar proposed Artificial Intelligence (AI) 1 & 2, saying “once I joined [the Academy], there were talks about adding an AI course. We were brainstorming to see how to introduce it. Since there were a lot of topics to cover we thought we would split it into two courses…it’s part of the 2033 mission, so that’s where the AI courses fit into place.”

Mr. Campbell added on to this, saying, “It’s IMSA’s strategic goals to meet by the year 2033.”

When asked about whether or not student input spurred the creation of the AI courses, Ms. Kumar stated that, “When we were designing [AI 1 & 2], we used to have conversations with students, and they were all more involved in it, and interested in it. We also pitched our curriculum  to a couple of alumni who’ve been working at Nvidia and Stanford and got a couple of reviews from them.”

Dr. Patankar added, “Over the last ten years, there’s been a lot of student interest in this topic. Because [the students] see it everywhere, so they want to know [more about it].” 

Mr. Campbell proposed the Elements of Computing Systems I & II. Saying “I took [the class] when I was in college, it’s been around for about 20 years. It’s taught at around 400+ Universities at this point. It was really useful for me, and it’s one of the more practical classes I took in college. It helped me get my first job, from the things I learned in that class. A lot of what I learned from the class I used throughout my career. So, it was something I was really interested in bringing to IMSA. I asked some students if they were interested to try and gauge interest. Two students had already started on the class material on their own. I did a google form and asked some students if they were interested. There were a good number of responses, so I went ahead and proposed it.”

Introduction to Neural Computation, proposed by Dr. Mohan, is being offered because, “AI and Neuroscience both share a common thread – architecture, learning rules and implementation. The Computational Neuroscience course and NeuroAI SIR are trying to teach the principles that will help generalization. The aim of the course and SIR is to understand how issues arise in both natural and artificial intelligence, compare how these system features affect representations, computations, and learning. These were introduced to provide students with a multiplicity of approaches and interests at the intersection of neuro and AI and for them to be able to explore some of these approaches and interests. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the subject matter, it serves as a great fit at IMSA providing students to apply their Math, CS, and Science skills.”

The only class the CS department is removing is CS Seminar: Machine Learning. According to Dr. Patankar, “I think the best way to say it is that it got absorbed in these new AI courses. So instead of machine learning [class], it’s spread over two AI courses with some additional material to complement it.”

Thank you so much to the CS department for this interview!

Math

The only course being removed from the Math department is Problem Solving. Other than that, the Math department remains relatively unchanged.

Science

In terms of amount of course changes, I’d say the Science department is second after the CS department this year. For the 2025-26 school year, both Environmental Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry will not be offered. In addition, Engineering: Statics & Dynamics and Evolution, Biodiversity, and Ecology will not be offered. However, although these courses are being removed, students can look forward to equally as many courses being offered for next year!

Biotechnology Techniques in Chemistry, Global Climate Change, and Human Anatomy & Physiology 1 & 2 are all classes added to the catalog for next year. 

English

Although two courses in the English department are being removed – Authors & Topics: Banned Books and Victorian Fiction – we have two new courses to look forward to! Expression and Experiment in Poetry as well as Horror Fiction Studies are two courses to get excited for next year!

The rest of the academic departments, History & Social Science, World Language, Fine Arts, and Wellness, have not made any changes to the courses being offered for next year. 

Overall, we have many exciting (and not so exciting) changes to look forward to for next year! With the CS department booming with new faculty and classes, and the Science department making adjustments to their course offerings, it’s only a matter of time before we see which courses are a hit, and which ones aren’t so popular.