NOTE: The requirements listed here take precendence over 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 the courses C335 Computer Structures, C341 Fundamentals of Computing Theory, and C343 Data Structures. Undergraduate course prerequisites may be satisfied by equivalent or more advanced courses, and in some cases by professional experience.

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), Programming Languages (2), Systems (3 or 4), or Applications, (5,6,7 or 8). General courses are numbered with a middle digit 9. Courses that involve a major programming project are designated as "Programming-in-the-large", and carry a course number with letter designation P.

Course Requirements

• A total of at least 30 credit hours is required. No credit requirement below is to be read as additional to these 30 credits.
• Five graduate level courses in Computer Science (500 level or higher), plus one of B403, B443, P425, P436, or a sixth graduate level course in Computer Science. The six courses must cover at least three areas, one of which must be Foundations, and at least one of the courses must carry a P designation.
• Additional courses at the 300 level or above carrying graduate credit (listed in the university's Graduate School Bulletin), excluding 300 level 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.
• Cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 in Computer Science courses.
• Cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 in all courses.

• In addition to course requirements students must satisfy the creativity requirement described below.
• There is no foreign language requirement.
• 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.

Creativity Requirement

One of the following four options must be satisfied.

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

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: one P course, and two CS courses at the 500 level or above, of which at most one can be a Y course.

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:

• Systems: C422, C525, C635

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

Further Help

Students with questions about requirements are invited to email them to gradvise@cs.indiana.edu. Questions may also be addressed to appropriate faculty members, or to the Director of Graduate Studies.

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