Transforming Potential into Promise: A Depth-First Approach

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The "depth-first" educational approach allows students with almost no background in a particular subject to study advanced topics in that subject in a relatively short time. The PI has successfully used this approach to train undergraduate students in computer science at Rutgers University-Camden and inspired them to pursue graduate studies. The program in Theoretical Computer Science (TCS for short) provides an opportunity to translate the potential of promising students into measurable impact. The program introduces undergraduate and high school students to TCS in a depth-first manner. New students join the program each summer, with almost no background in computer science and are introduced to topics in discrete mathematics and algorithms. The meetings with the students continue during the academic year. Students who return to the program in subsequent years study advanced topics in theoretical computer science and participate in research. Students participating in this program gain robust exposure to the field of computer science and are ready to study advanced topics early in college, which will enable them to do substantive research before they graduate. The program has been quite successful in attracting and retaining female participants.This project will continue to test the success of depth-first approach in training students to conduct research in TCS. Various research topics in optimization and approximation algorithms will be explored by high school and undergraduate students. In the end, a more diverse pool of students contribute to the research progress in TCS.