Some disciplines have introduced application-oriented computer courses, such as Ag251 Computer Applications in Agriculture, Ba131 Introduction to Business Data Processing, and Ls199c, Personal Computer Applications. Science and Engineering have relied primarily on programming-oriented computer courses. In the last two years the bulk of instructional computing has shifted from the university's central mainframe computer to newly established departmental computer laboratories. This shift has been spearheaded by individual colleges, including Business, Engineering, Forestry, Liberal Arts, and Science. Many students have not even been exposed to the basics of using a computer, such as how to format a disk or operate a typical application program.
Many students graduate without an adequate exposure to computer applications in their major field.
As the quality and variety of software has improved, it has become much more important to know how to use and select software than to know how to write programs. For example, this year's accounting students will graduate without any hands-on experience with a computerized accounting system. The proliferation of small departmental computer laboratories has led to inefficiencies in both supervision and student access. Each lab requires lab monitors, and many of the labs are located in buildings that are not open in the evenings and on weekends. Because each course's students are restricted to a particular lab, an assignment in one course can swamp one lab while other labs remain temporarily unused.