STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

Student Perspectives on Selected Human Factors Graduate Programs

by Jennifer Trich Kremer

Thinking about pursuing a Graduate degree in Human Factors or a related field? Your first move should be to identify schools that offer programs of interest, and Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) web sites are a good place to start:

• ACM general list of programs: www.acm.org/sigchi/education/#PROGRAMS
• HFES Directory of programs: www.hfes.org/publications/GradSchools.html

Next you might call or write your selected schools to get personal perspectives about the programs from advisors or instructors. You should also ask about instructors' research interests, whether they share their appointments among one or several departments, and the types of labs and equipment provided.

As you begin to narrow your focus, a good next step is to visit the schools to meet the instructors, look at the facilities, and perhaps sit in on some classes. Try to arrange to speak with some students as well because their perspectives will most closely match your own, and they will offer you valuable insights that an instructor or course bulletin just cannot provide.

This article is a result of a survey from students who currently attend or have attended various schools. Contributors describe aspects of the programs that are most meaningful to them, and, hopefully, to you, as well.

Bentley College
Waltham, Massachusetts
Masters Program
http://www.bentley.edu/graduate/index.cfm

Bentley has a MS Human Factors program (MS in Human Factors Information Design, to be specific). It seems to have a very strong project management/program management bent, mostly because it is a very new program (two years old) that evolved from a business school. Almost all of the students in the program are working professionals: some usability, some tech writing, plus several others. The faculty includes several notable members of the Human Factors/usability community (e.g., Bill Gribbons, Joe Dumas, and Chauncey Wilson).

Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia
MS-HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) Program
www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/hci/

This program is excellent. It enrolls about 20 students per year. It is out of the Graphics Visualization and Usability Center at Tech, and students choose one of three tracks: Graphics, Psychology (strong in Cognitive Science), or Computer Science. They also must take a core of HCI-related classes, which include Human Factors classes such as Engineering Psychology.

New Mexico State University (NMSU)
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Masters and Doctorate Programs
www-psych.nmsu.edu/engineer.html

NMSU started offering Human Factors training in 1968, as part of the Psych program, making it one of the oldest schools offering this type of program in the US. Some of the founding members of the HF community taught at NMSU (e.g., Stanley Roscoe).

NMSU has (and has had) a very large portion of the faculty engaged in HF and, specifically, HCI research. When I went there it was about 2/3 of the Psych department. The program is affiliated with a research lab at NMSU that was founded to conduct HF/HCI/AI research with an interdisciplinary set of researchers and faculty involved. The faculty has conducted HCI research sponsored by IBM, HP, Intel, Microsoft, US Navy, etc. Many of the faculty once worked in industry and bring those experiences to their students.

Graduates from NMSU pepper the industry, including HP, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, etc. This includes those who manage usability/UI departments. Graduates of NSMU can be found managing such departments at Siebel Systems, Fidelity, Microsoft (specifically the WebTV group), to name a few.

North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina
MS and PhD in Human Factors from the Psychology Department
www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/cep/Psychology/graduate/conc/ergo_exp/index.htm

The current status of this HF curriculum in the Psychology Department is unclear, but North Carolina State has a good Cognitive Science curriculum between the Psychology and Philosophy Departments. good Visual Perception curriculum in Psychology Department, and has an MS in Industrial Engineering with a good bent on Ergonomics (maybe a PhD). There are very strong programs of study in Occupational Biomechanics and the History of Ergonomics from the Industrial Engineering Department.

See www.ie.ncsu.edu/graduate/graduate.html.

San Jose State University
San Jose, California
MS in Human Factors/Ergonomics Program (HF/E)
http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/svei/hfems.html

HF/E is an interdisciplinary program consisting of Industrial Engineering, Psychology, Human Performance (Kinesiology), Industrial Design, and Computer Science. Students entering the program usually have a BS in one of those majors listed above. The program was started in 1993. The advisor is Dr. Kevin Corker, who is the principal investigator at our lab here on campus: HAIL (Human Automation Integration Laboratory), where four graduate students work on projects for the FAA and NASA (http://sjsuhail.org). It may also be worth noting that they're in the heart of Silicon Valley, so the direction students take in this program tends to vary.

Tufts University
Medford, Massachusets
B.A./B.S./M.S./PhD Human Factors Program
http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/

Tufts University has a (B.A./B.S./M.S./PhD) Human Factors program that specializes in HCI and consumer product design. Students learn ideation, design, usability testing, and expert review, among other things. One of the great things about the program is that while it has a strong core of classes, you are able to take other classes to learn more about areas that interest you specifically.
Side note: Tufts has offered B.S., M.S. and PhDs in Engineering Psychology; however, the current professor is on the verge of retirement, and they're looking for a replacement.

University of Michigan, School of Information
M.S. in Information with a Human Computer Interaction specialization
www.si.umich.edu

Other specializations are available including Archives & Records Management and Information, Economics, Management, and Policy. It is a top program with great faculty in their respective fields. Some popular areas: Usability, Information Architecture, Community Based Information, Organizational Information, and Information Visualization. One particularly attractive aspect of the program for me was that you didn't need a computer science background. In fact, the school specializes in multi-disciplinary approaches to its material, so you have a nice mix of B.S. folks and B.A. folks (Computer Science, Psychology, and everything else).

University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
PhD in Human Factors
http://asweb.artsci.uc.edu/psychology/department/index.html

The program specializes in the area of vigilance, workload, stress and ecological psychology. You obtain a strong statistical and research background from this program, which will make you very marketable in a variety of areas. The one downside of the program is that they currently do not have an HCI or extensive cognitive emphasis from a human factors perspective. This is a new program (less than five years) and has a lot of potential.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia
Masters and Certificate Programs
http://hci.ise.vt.edu/ - Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory Site

Virginia Polytechnic has a very strong Human Factors program that involves the HF/Industrial Engineering program, the Computer Science department, and other departments at the University.

Wichita State University
Wichita, Kansas
http://psychology.wichita.edu/hf/

Wichita State has one of the largest doctorate programs in Human Factors Psychology. The program specializes in Human-Computer Interaction and other software usability issues. A newsletter, www.usabilitynews.org, covers some of this research). Also, the curriculum focuses on visual issues (as it relates to driving and reading, etc.) and motor-control issues, http://psychology.wichita.edu/vision/ as well as learning and memory, http://psychology.wichita.edu/cognition/.

Wright State University
Dayton, Ohio
Undergraduate, Masters and Doctorate Programs
http://www.cs.wright.edu/bie/

The Psychology Department offers BA, BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Human Factors. The school of engineering offers BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Human Factors Engineering. It is an ABET accredited engineering program. I believe that the curriculum benefits from being built around a systems engineering discipline, which is good preparation for working in or with technology development organizations. The school has pretty robust program in terms of the types of class work that is offered.

The program caters to topics related to aviation/aerospace much more than it does everyday HCI issues that someone working on a standard software app will encounter. This is driven by the fact that WSU is right next to Wright Patterson Air force Base and the large portion of the graduate students have some affiliation to the US Air Force.

For more information, see the Topics page on academic programs in HCI, usability and information design