The HCDE Department is currently in the midst of a multi-year undergraduate curriculum review and revision process. We have created this page to help answer some common questions we’ve received from students and other community members regarding these changes. We will continue to update this page with additional information as we proceed through the process of gaining approval for and implementing these curricular changes.

Why is the HCDE Department proposing changes to the Bachelor of Science degree requirements?

HCDE continuously reviews the undergraduate curriculum to identify areas of success and opportunities that will enhance student learning. These program changes are the result of a 3-year comprehensive review that included faculty, staff, and students. An  additional motivation for the changes is to bring the program into compliance with the General Engineering Degree requirements specified by ABET.

What are the advantages of graduating with an ABET accredited degree?

The University of Washington is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), one of six regional accrediting organizations recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and thus, HCDE students already graduate from a regionally accredited university. HCDE is seeking additional ABET accreditation, which is the international gold standard for all undergraduate engineering programs. Students with an ABET-accredited degree may be more attractive to employers who specifically seek graduates with human centered design skills within a general engineering degree program.

As we make this transition to a new curriculum, it is important to note that regardless of whether a student graduates with our degree pre- or post-accreditation, we are confident that the HCDE Department consistently offers students access to an outstanding education and excellent employment opportunities.

What kinds of changes are being proposed to the HCDE graduation requirements for students who enter the major in Autumn 2024 or later?

Some of the planned changes to the current HCDE BS degree requirements include:

• Updates to the HCDE math/statistics, science, and engineering fundamentals course lists
• Requiring all students to complete at least one statistics course
• Removing ENGR 231 from the HCDE degree requirements, which will no longer be taught by the College of Engineering
• Changes to the 300-level core courses for the major
• Changes to the experiential learning credits for the major
• Creating 2 separate categories of HCDE electives

These changes are currently making their way through the university approval process.

How do these changes impact course planning for students who will be applying to the major in the future?

The most important change for students who have not yet applied to the HCDE major relates to the HCDE admission prerequisites. Beginning with the students applying to enter HCDE in Autumn 2026, MATH 120, PHYS 114-116, and PSYCH 202 will likely no longer be eligible to meet HCDE admission prerequisites. Students planning to apply to HCDE for Autumn 2026 or later should therefore plan to select other courses from the HCDE admission prerequisite list to complete the HCDE admission prerequisites.
Students applying to HCDE for Autumn 2024 or Autumn 2025 may still use these courses to meet admission prerequisites; however, if they have not yet taken these courses, we would encourage them to select other courses from the HCDE admission prerequisite list.

Although most of the other changes to our requirements for graduation from the HCDE major will primarily impact courses not taken until after a student has entered the HCDE program, we are also making some changes to the courses that can apply to our math/statistics, science, and engineering fundamentals requirements. Students who are getting started on these requirements prior to Autumn 2024 should contact HCDE Advising at askchde@uw.edu to confirm whether the courses they are planning are expected to remain on our degree requirements list in the future.

Why are the Human-Computer Interaction and Data Science degree options being retired?

There are 3 main reasons why the HCI Option and Data Science Option are being retired:

1. To reduce student confusion: We have found that there is often a disconnect between the expectations of students and employers/graduate programs regarding the impact of transcriptable degree options, and students’ ability to summarize and reflect on their coursework, experiential learning, and skills gained via our degree is more important to employers than their degree option. 
2. To remove redundancy: For the HCI Option specifically, the overwhelming majority of students who complete this option do so by taking 400-level HCDE courses exclusively. This means that a student could complete the HCDE Standard (a.k.a. Individualized) Option or the HCDE HCI Option by taking identical courses. In other words, there is no longer a substantive curricular distinction between these 2 degree options, and HCDE students who are interested in pursuing HCI-related topics can do so within our Standard Option.
3. To meet accreditation requirements: Retiring the options ensures that HCDE students complete the bulk of their upper division coursework within the HCDE Department via courses taught by HCDE faculty. This allows us to continually assess, improve, and modify our courses to make sure they are meeting ABET standards.

It is also worth noting that the retirement of the HCI and Data Science Options does not represent a substantive change in our HCDE course offerings or the topics covered within the HCDE curriculum.