University of California at Santa Barbara Just Finished Its First Accredited Blockchain Course

The University of California at Santa Barbara has just concluded its first accredited course focused on blockchain and distributed ledger technology.

The course, which was taught as a computer science class through the College of Creative Studies, was formed in response to requests from the Blockchain Acceleration Foundation, a nonprofit organization composed of students, professors, blockchain advocates, and interested individuals who want to facilitate the mass adoption of blockchain technology.

Blockchain at UCSB co-founder and Blockchain Acceleration Foundation president Cameron Dennis noted that despite blockchain's rising popularity on college campuses, students at UCSB previously had few opportunities to learn about the emerging technology outside of Blockchain at UCSB meetings.

After numerous discussions with UCSB administration, Dennis was able to convince the university that a computer science course focused on blockchain was needed.

"My goal with this course was to teach radically-curious computer science students about compelling blockchain use-cases that can disrupt society's most entrenched institutions while revolutionizing corporate governance."

The Importance of Blockchain EducationAccording to the 2nd Annual Coinbase Report on Higher Education, released on August 28, 56 percent of the world's top 50 universities now offer at least one course on crypto or blockchain, which is up from 42 percent in 2018.

The report also found that twice as many students have taken a crypto or blockchain course this year versus last year.

The Coinbase report also noted that while computer science classes most commonly focus on blockchain, finance, business and economic classes are also teaching courses on blockchain.

UCSB's course, titled "Decentralized Ledger Technology," taught students about consensus mechanisms, Bitcoin and Proof of Work, Ethereum Virtual Machine, Solidity and smart contract development, algorithmic stablecoins, zero-knowledge proofs and other relevant blockchain topics.

Other Blockchain CoursesWhile UCSB just concluded their first blockchain-focused course, Ripple's University Blockchain Research Initiative, which was launched in June 2018, has committed over $50 million in funding to 29 universities around the world.