Shippensburg Computer Science Department

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Computer Science (M.S.)

Computer science is a fast-moving field that continues to attract professionals whose undergraduate degrees are not in computer science. The M.S. in Computer Science is designed to accommodate students from several different backgrounds. Students with at least a minor in computer science will find a traditional M.S. in Computer Science. Our undergraduates may obtain an advanced degree through a 4+1 B.S./M.S. option. Students who wish to transition from math, science, or engineering into computer science may be fully enrolled in the program after taking three prerequisite undergraduate courses.

Full-time graduate students will take nine graduate credits per semester and graduate in two years. Part-time students can take one course in the evening during the fall and spring semesters and one or two courses in the summer to graduate in three and a half to four years.

Admission Requirements

To gain admission to the M.S. in computer science program, an applicant must satisfy the general admission requirements of the graduate school. Students are admitted in the fall only. Applicants whose overall quality point average is below 2.75 will be required to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) prior to admission. All international applicants who have not graduated from a four-year American university must take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Additionally, all such applicants must achieve a minimum score of 237 on the TOEFL (computer based).

Graduation Requirements

The degree requires 30 graduate credits. There are six core courses out of a total of 10 total courses required. At most two 400-level courses may be used as electives. Traditional students can be admitted in either the spring or fall and complete the degree in three semesters plus one summer. The following two tables show the course schedules for traditional students entering in the fall and spring, respectively.

Fall	Spring	Summer	Fall
Algorithms	Operating Systems	500-level Elective	Automata Theory
Archtiecture	High Performance Computing		Database Management Systems
Elective	Elective		Elective

Spring	Summer	Fall	Spring
Database Management Systems	500-level Elective	Architecture	High Performace Computing
Elective		Automata Theory	Operating Systems
Elective		Algorithms	Elective

Transitional Students
For transitional students, the combination of a math or science undergraduate degree with a computer science masters degree can create unique and marketable skills. People with that background are poised to apply computer science in areas for which traditional computer scientists are unprepared. We do require that a transitional student have had at least one programming course. Then, in their first fall semester they must take three undergraduate courses:

CSC 111 - Computer Science II
CSC 220 - Computer Organization
MAT 225 - Discrete Math

Note that while taking these UG courses, the student is not eligible for a graduate assistantship. In the spring, they can be fully enrolled in the MS program using the same schedule as traditional students.

B.S. + M.S. (4 +1 program)
Our bachelor's students can complete the M.S. degree in only one year beyond the B.S. degree by using the following course table:

Spring of Senior Year	Summer	Fall	Spring
Database Management Systems	500-level Elective	Architechture	High Performace Computing
500-level Elective	500-level Independent Study	Automata Theory	Operating Systems
		Algorithms	Elective

For 4+1 students, the two 500-level courses taken in the spring of their senior year will count as electives in their B.S. program and cannot be substituted for any course in their concentration and these courses cannot replace core courses in the B.S.