NOTE: The requirements listed here are intended to take precedence over the listing in the Graduate School Bulletin.

Admission

Requirements for admission: Baccalaureate degree and Graduate Record Examination (subject test highly desirable). Prerequisites common to all graduate requirements are coursework in

• Computer structures and organization.
• Discrete structures and computing theory.
• Data structures.

Degree Requirements

At least 30 credits in Computer Science or related areas. These include the Course Requirements and the Creativity Requirement, as defined below.

Course Classification

Most of the Computer Science Department's courses at the 400 level and above are classified into four areas:

• Foundations (middle digit 0 or 1, e.g., B501, B502, B503);
• Programming Languages (middle digit 2, e.g., B521, B522, P523 );
• Systems (middle digit 3 or 4, e.g., P536, B538, B541, P542, B543);
• Applications (middle digit 5, 6, 7 or 8, e.g., B551, B561, B573, B581).

Course Requirements

• A total of at least 30 credit hours is required, excluding all A5xx Computer Science courses. No credit requirement below is to be read as additional to these 30 credits.
• Six courses in Computer Science, subject to the following requirements.
  • Each course must carry at least 3 credits.
  • At least five of the six courses should be Computer Science listings at the 500 level or higher. Included are the Cognitive Science courses Q500 and Q550, but no other cross-listed courses.
  • One course may be selected out of the Computer Science courses B403, B443, P423, P436 and the Mathematics courses M471 and M472. These are available for graduate credit even though they are listed primarily as undergraduate courses.
  • One course must be a Computer Science P course.
  • One course must be in Foundations (middle digit 0 or 1).
  • Two of the remaining three Computer Science areas (Programming Languages, Systems, and Applications) must be represented among the six courses.
• Additional approved courses carrying graduate credit (courses listed in the university's Graduate School Bulletin), excluding all A5xx Computer Science courses. Courses at the 300 or 400 level from outside of the College of Arts and Sciences must be approved in advance by the Director for Graduate Studies.
• Y890 (Thesis Readings and Research) may not be used to satisfy the MS requirements.
• No more than a total of 6 out of the 30 credits required can be earned from any combination of Y790 (Graduate Independent Study), Y791 (Graduate Independent System Development), Y792 (Master's Thesis) and Y793 (Master's Software Thesis) listings.
• Cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 in Computer Science courses.
• Cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 in all courses.
• All courses must be completed within 5 consecutive years.

Creativity Requirement

One of the following four options must be satisfied.

T: Master's research thesis (Y792, 6 credits), consisting either of a formal master's thesis as prescribed by the Graduate School, or of a survey or original research paper at a level appropriate for publication as a departmental technical report or as a conference presentation.

S: Master's software thesis (Y793, 6 credits), consisting of substantial individual input into a major software research and development project, documented in the public domain.

Q: Passing, with a grade of B or better, one of the department's written PhD qualifiers, and six additional credits approved by the department, in the natural and mathematical sciences (CS and Mathematics permitted).

C: Adding to the CS course requirements three courses (9 credits or more) from the Computer Science listings: one P course carrying graduate credit, and in addition two CS courses at the 500 level or above, of which at most one can be a Y course.

Notes:

• There is no foreign language requirement.
• Graduate coursework previously applied to a degree in one department cannot be applied to a Master's degree in another department, unless you are concurrently enrolled in both departments. See, for example, "Dual Master's Program" in the Graduate School Bulletin.

Credit for Discontinued Courses

The department's suite of graduate courses has been revised in 1995 and 1996. Students may count courses already completed towards the new requirements, using tables indicating correspondence between old and new courses, one sorted by new course numbers, and another sorted by old course numbers. Do not take a new course if it is equivalent to a course already taken: credit will not be given for both.

For old courses that have no new equivalents in the table, the following area designations apply:

• Foundations: C451, C452 (corresponding to current B501)

• Algorithms: C455 (corresponding to current B503)

• Systems: C422, C525, C635

• Applications: C463, C464, C482, C563, C564, C582, C667

Further Help

Questions may be addressed to appropriate faculty members, or to the Director of Graduate Studies.

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