B.S./M.S. in Computer Science

Program of Study
Degree Type
B.S./M.S.

Overview

The university rules for the B.S./M.S. program are described in Section 5 of the undergraduate catalog and on this page of the graduate catalog.

Process

Students may formally apply for admission to the B.S./M.S. program during or after taking their second 4000-level Computer Science course. Forms are available through the graduate admissions office or via their website.

Students who have entered the B.S./M.S. program, or are considering it, qualify for B.S./M.S. credit for the courses listed below.

In order to receive graduate credits for a 4000-level course, the student must earn a B course grade or higher. Course instructors may waive the course grade requirement at their discretion. Faculty 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 credit, the student must register for 1/6 undergraduate unit of independent study at the 4000-level or a 1 graduate credit independent study at the 500-level, with permission from the instructor.

Regulations

The CS department allows all CS 4000-level undergraduate course credits to count towards the B.S./M.S. Further, with the permission of the instructor and either the Graduate Committee or the Department Chair, 4000-level Undergraduate Independent Studies may also be counted towards the B.S./M.S.

Some undergraduate and graduate courses cover similar material. Students may receive credit for both when the graduate course covers extensive material beyond the undergraduate course. The table below lists courses with significant overlap. A student can receive credit for at most one of the two courses in any row of this table.

Undergraduate Course                      Graduate Course

CS 4341 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence CS 534 Artificial Intelligence
CS 4342 Machine Learning CS 539 Machine Learning
CS 4432 Database Systems II CS 542 Database Management Systems
CS 4445 Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in Databases CS 548 Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining
CS 4513 Distributed Systems CS 502 Operating Systems
CS 4516 Advanced Computer Networks CS 513 Computer Networks
CS 4518 Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing CS 528 Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing
CS 4533 Techniques of Programming Language Translation CS 544 Compiler Construction
CS 4536 Programming Languages CS 536 Programming Language Design
CS 4731 Computer Graphics CS 543 Computer Graphics
CS 4802 Biovisualization CS 582 Biovisualization
CS 4803 Biological and Biomedical Database Mining CS 583 Biological and Biomedical Database Mining

A B.S./M.S. student may use 1/3 unit of undergraduate credit or independent study/project work taken for B.S./M.S. credit to satisfy a bin requirement, if any of the following conditions is met: (1) The undergraduate course covers material similar to that of a graduate course that satisfies the bin. The table above provides pairs of undergraduate and graduate courses that cover similar material. The undergraduate course under consideration must appear in this table, and the corresponding graduate course must satisfy the bin requirement. (2) The course or independent study/project work is deemed to satisfy the bin by the instructor, Bin Committee, and Graduate Program Chair as indicated on the Graduate Bins Petition Form. (3) B.S./M.S. students that receive B.S./M.S. credit for one of the following courses can use that course to satisfy the corresponding bin.

  • Theory: 4123 (Theory of Computation)
  • Algorithms: 4120 (Analysis of Algorithms)
  • Design: 4233 (OOAD), 4241 (Webware)
  • Graphics/Imaging: 4732 (Animation)
  • Cyber Security: 4401 (Software Security), 4404 (Tools and Techniques)
  • Applications of CS: 4100 (AI for IMGD)