Requirements

Applying for Graduation

You must submit an application to the Graduate School to graduate. Please make sure to check the deadlines as it will be earlier than you might think. If you wish to “walk” in a ceremony in May for an August graduation, please check with the Graduate School to determine their current policy.

M.S. in Computer Science

Full requirements are available in the catalog. Please note the following requirements:

• 11 Graduate-level courses totaling at least 31 credit hours are required for the degree. Students must attain a 3.0 GPA to graduate and no courses with grades lower than C count toward graduation.
• Of the 10 courses, no more than 2 may be from outside the Department and those courses must be closely related to and contain substantial content in computer science.
• Of the 10 courses, no more than 2 courses may be transferred from other institutions.
• In total, no more than two courses from outside the department can count toward the degree.
• In each case, the Department will decide what courses outside the Department will qualify.

Students seeking admission to the Master’s program who do not have an undergraduate degree in computer science may be required to take from 1 to 4 courses as deficiencies, and will be expected to earn a grade of B or higher in these courses.

Ph.D. in Computer Science

Full requirements are available in the catalog. Please note the following requirements:

• Must complete the requirements for the M.S. in Computer Science with thesis option. The Department will assess all work done at other institutions and may recommend a waiver of 30 semester hours for an M.S. completed elsewhere.

• Must complete at least 90 semester hours of graduate course work

• Must complete CSCI 701: Research Methods (3 credit hours). Students who have completed this course as part of their M.S. degree must substitute it with 3 credit hours of Graduate CSCI elective coursework.

• Must complete Advanced Coursework (12 credit hours). Students must take four courses chosen from the following three areas:

  • Data Analytics

    • CSCI 637: Pattern Recognition and Data Mining II (3 credit hours)
    • CSCI 647: Advanced Discrete Simulation (3 credit hours)
    • CSCI 658: Natural Language Processing II (3 credit hours)
    • CSCI 659: Intelligent Interactive Systems (3 credit hours)

  • Graphics and Visualization

    • CSCI 628: Information Visualization (3 credit hours)
    • CSCI 629: Scientific Visualization (3 credit hours)
    • CSCI 632: Advanced Computer Graphics (3 credit hours)
    • CSCI 634: Computer Vision (3 credit hours)
    • CSCI 635: Virtual Reality (3 credit hours)

  • Bioinformatics

    • CSCI 653: Algorithmic Bioinformatics II (3 credit hours)

• Must complete CSCI 799: Dissertation (24–44 credit hours). An oral examination on the dissertation will be conducted by the dissertation committee according to Graduate School regulations. Students must be enrolled for at least 2 semester hours of credit in the semester in which the examination is taken. Students who fail the examination may, with permission of the Department, repeat it once.

• Must complete Graduate CSCI Elective Course Work (0–20). Students must complete sufficient semester hours of electives to fill out their program. Elective course work includes CSCI courses in the range 500-798, except 699, that have not been used to satisfy another requirement.

• Must complete Language/Research Tool Requirements

  • Students must successfully complete of CSCI 501, 502, or 503, or with departmental approval, as required by the M.S. in Computer Science, courses as one of the research tool courses.
  • CSCI 701: Research Methods in Computer Science counts as the other research tool course.

• Must complete a Candidacy Examination. The candidacy examination for the Ph.D. consists of writing a dissertation proposal and successfully passing an oral examination based on that proposal. Students are generally expected to pass the candidacy examination within two years of the completion of the qualifying examination. Students who fail the examination may, with permission of the Department, repeat it once.

• Must complete a Qualifying Examination. The qualifying examination for the Ph.D. consists of writing and successfully defending a master's thesis in Computer Science. Students are generally expected to pass the qualifying examination by the end of their second year in the program. Students who fail the examination may, with permission of the Department, repeat it once.