MSc. Computational Sciences for Complex Systems

Purpose

A central topic to CASCADE is the establishment of the new, multidisciplinary M.Sc. in “Computational Sciences for Complex Systems” (CSCS). It targets students with a B.Sc. in biology, chemistry, physics, life sciences, mathematics and computer sciences. Its primary goal is to educate and train students in algorithms, numerical methods, (parallel) programming, statistics and data analysis, visualization and modeling and to let them apply this knowledge in problems from all scientific areas connected to CASCADE. It will, therefore, train young academics with important interdisciplinary skills. Furthermore, this novel study program will provide young talents which are well educated in various computational aspects and their application to solving hard problems, urgently needed in industry and society. In particular, it will be obligatory to subscribe to a module “Philosophy of Science” offered from the CST at the interface of philosophy and natural sciences. An important ingredient will be a “Lab Course” in high performance computing, which can be carried out directly at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre where the students can benefit from the large practical expertise accumulated there over the years. The lab course is going to be designed such that the students can apply their theoretical knowledge in practice. Moreover, it will prepare the students for their master thesis, where the students will apply their knowledge to a relevant and current science topic. This master thesis will be completed in half a year in one of the groups which are part of CASCADE. Since in particular the knowledge in mathematics and programming is very different for students with the aforementioned B.Sc. degrees, the CSCS will be structured in a synchronization area, a scientific computing area and a specialization area.

The synchronization area is designed to align the different education levels in mathematics and programming. In the scientific computing area general scientific computing modules are offered as well as modules specialized to particular science fields and to high performance computing. The specialization area allows to focus on a certain science field of CASCADE. Each of the three areas comprises 30 credit points. The M.Sc. is completed with a master thesis with again 30 credit points. 

Curricula

Sample curricula for the M.Sc. CSCS depending on the B.Sc. [minor in square brackets] of the student and the desired specialization:

• BSc. Physics → M.Sc. CSCS [Physics]
• BSc. Physics → M.Sc. CSCS [Natural sciences]
• BSc. Chemistry → M.Sc. CSCS
• BSc. Biology/Life sciences → M.Sc. CSCS
• BSc. Computer science [Mathematics] → M.Sc. CSCS
• BSc. Computer science [Biology/Chemistry/Physics] → M.Sc. CSCS
• BSc. Mathematics [Computer Science] → M.Sc. CSCS
• BSc. Mathematics [Biology/Chemistry/Physics] → M.Sc. CSCS

Sample courses for the synchronization area, the scientific computing area and the specialization area.

Current activities

In the summer semester 2018 we started a new lecture "High performance computing: Modern computer architectures and applications in the physical science" which is very well received by the students so far.