courses of instruction - Lafayette College

382. Cooperative Education. Course cred
it is based upon a written report and oral
presentation describing a project under
taken during an off-campus scientific lab
oratory experience covering a period of at
least one semester and one summer. Pre
requisite: permission of the department.
Offered as needed. Staff
391-394. Independent Study. A research
project carried out under the guidance of a
faculty member. May not be equivalent in
scope or duration to an Honors Thesis. 391
offered in fall semester; 392, spring semes
ter; 393, fall semester; 394, spring semes
ter. Staff
431. Advanced Inorganic Chemistry.
This course uses molecular orbital theory
to explain the electronic structure and re
activity of inorganic complexes. Topics in
clude symmetry and its applications to
bonding and spectroscopy, electronic spec-
troscopy of transition-metal complexes,
mechanisms of substitution and redox
processes, organometallic and bioinorgan-
ic chemistry. Prerequisites: Chemistry 213,
311, or 324, 325 or 325, 326. Mathematics
162. Offered in fall semester. Mr. Barber.
440. Structure Determination by Physi
cal Methods. Use of infrared, ultraviolet,
nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spec-
trometry, and computational methods in
the determination of the structures of or
ganic molecules. These methods also have
application to the problems of inorganic
chemistry. Prerequisite: Chemistry 311, or
323,324 or 325,326. Lecture/laboratory.
Mr. Miles
452. Topics in Advanced Biochemistry.
This course covers a variety of topics with
emphasis on the molecular basis of human
disease, new areas of biochemical re
search, and advances in biotechnology.
Topics may include immunobiochemistry,
molecular mechanisms of cellular signal
transduction, advanced topics in metabo
lism, chemical carcinogenesis, and the
physical basis of biochemical methodolo
gy. Prerequisite: Chemistry 351. Lecture.
Offered in spring semester. Mr. Husk
CHEMISTRY
462. Advanced Physical Chemistry. A
study of one or more selected topics of
current interest in physical chemistry. De
pendent upon staff, topics may include
advanced spectroscopy, computational
chemistry, materials chemistry, or statisti
cal thermodynamics. The topics and pre
requisites (Chemistry 323 or 324 depend
ing on topics, or permission of instructor)
for a given semester will be announced
before registration. Lecture. Mr. Hang,
Ms. Walters
470-480. Special Topics. Dependent upon
staff and student interest, one or more
special topics in chemistry are examined.
Staff
495, 496. Thesis. A student may register
for this course after meeting with depart
ment staff and finding a faculty member
who agrees to act as his or her research
adviser. Discussion of research areas with
the faculty and preliminary work involv
ing literature searching and planning
should be completed before the beginning
of the senior year. Research in some areas
requires certain prerequisite courses. 495
offered in fall semester; 496 offered in
spring semester. S taff
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Associate Professor Collins, Head; Professor
Schwar; Assistant Professors Bjorling-Sachs,
Liew
Computer science is the study of algo
rithms and their implementations. This
field of study is quite recent more than
95 percent of all computer scientists who
ever lived are still alive. Its growth has
been explosive, especially in subfields
such as networks, artificial intelligence,
and e-commerce.
The main emphasis of the curricula is
software engineering: a systematic ap
proach to the development of medium-to-
large programs. One aspect of this ap
proach is the separation of principles from
technology. Students learn underlying
concepts in lecture sections and learn tech
nical details such as programming lan-