For the Joint Bachelor's/Master's Program
The requirements for the MCS are structured so that undergraduate students would be able to pursue a Bachelor's/Master's program, in which the Bachelor's degree is awarded in any major offered at WPI (other than Computer Science) and the Master's degree is awarded as the MCS degree. Students enrolled in the joint Bachelor's/Master's program must satisfy all the program requirements of their respective bachelor's degree and all the program requirements of the MCS degree. Students may double-count courses towards both their undergraduate and graduate degrees whose credit hours total no more than 40 percent of the 30 credit hours (i.e., 12 credits) required for the MCS, and that meet all other requirements for each degree. These courses can include graduate courses and graduate independent studies.
- For CS 4000-level courses, a grade of B or better is required for any course to be counted toward both degrees. Course instructors may waive the course grade requirement at their discretion. Course instructors may offer, at their discretion, an additional 1/6 undergraduate unit, or equivalently a 1 graduate credit, for completing additional work in the course. To obtain this additional credit, the student must register for 1/6 undergraduate unit of Computer Science independent study at the 4000-level or a 1 graduate credit independent study at the 500-level, with permission from the instructor.
- Other 4000-level courses from the major of the Bachelor’s degree are allowed to count as long as (1) the undergraduate course covers similar material as a graduate course; (2) the student received a grade of B or better; (3) the academic unit offering the graduate course also allows this corresponding undergraduate course to be used for BS/MS credit to satisfy this graduate course. Other 4000-level courses not meeting the above criteria and 4000- level independent study courses may be approved for double-counting for the BS/MCS degree only through a petition and approval from the MCS program director. Such a petition might be denied, for example, if the student seeks to apply both an undergraduate class and a graduate class that cover similar material.
Some undergraduate and graduate Computer Science courses cover similar material. Students may receive credit for both when the graduate course covers extensive material beyond the undergraduate course. The table in the “B.S./M.S. in Computer Science” section of the graduate catalog lists courses with significant overlap. A student can receive credit towards the MCS degree for at most one of the two courses in any row of this table.