Training and Educating Undergraduate Students in the Discipline of HCI

An incoming freshman student stops by your office because he/she has read that your research area is HCI and desires to work with you. As teachers and academic advisers, how should we assist our students in choosing courses that will be beneficial to their study of HCI, but that will also provide the breadth that undergraduate studies provide? How should we as researchers assist our students in developing skills that will be beneficial to conducting research in HCI? How should we as teacher-researchers ensure that our student graduate from our universities adequately prepared? The aim of this paper is to present the HCI curriculum, to present the rationale for students to gain training in certain HCI-related areas that also provide for the breadth required in an undergraduate degree program, and to also suggest ideas for future work.