Computer Science, M.S.

Degree Requirements

Within five years of admission, students must earn a minimum of 30 credit hours with the thesis option, 33 credit hours with the non-thesis option. Students must satisfy the GPA and course requirements for their field of specialty. Each student must complete either a thesis or a scholarly paper. The thesis option requires a minimum of eight graduate-level courses (24 credit hours) and six credit hours of thesis (CMSC 799 ). The thesis must be defended with an oral exam and accepted with the approval of the student’s master’s thesis committee. The non-thesis option requires a minimum of 10 graduate-level courses (30 credit hours) and three credit hours of CMSC 698 research project work resulting in a scholarly paper that must be approved by the advisor and read by another faculty member.

Core Courses

Each student must take:

One of the following courses

In addition, each student must take one of the following courses to complete their breadth requirement:

Note:

Students must earn a “B” or better grade in the four core courses.

Additional Courses

Beyond the four breadth courses and the six credits of CMSC 799: Master’s Thesis Research , a minimum of 12 additional course credits is required for students who choose the thesis option. For students who choose the non-thesis option, the minimum additional course credits are 18. Each field of specialty may specify courses that can be used to satisfy this requirement. Unless approved by the graduate director, each student is allowed to take a maximum of six credits of courses outside the department. These courses must be at the graduate level and be approved by the student’s advisor and the graduate program director prior to the registration.

M.S. Thesis Option

Any CMSC graduate student may undertake a master’s thesis, supervised by a faculty member thesis advisor. Upon completion of the thesis research, the thesis must be defended in a public presentation.

Transfer Credits

No more than six credits may be transferred from another university or from UMBC as a non-degree student. Credit transfer must be approved by the graduate program director.