Computer Engineering, M.S.

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The CpE Program offers a Master of Science (M.S.) which requires a thesis. Students should consult the School of Engineering and Applied Science–Academic Rules section of the Record for school-level degree requirements that are additional to the following CpE Graduate Program requirements.

Requirements and Procedures for the Master of Science Degree

The Master of Science (M.S.) degree in Computer Engineering requires at least 24 graded course credits plus 6 credits of 8999 (Master’s Thesis Research) for a total of 30 credits. 

Each M.S. student must produce a thesis describing research of publishable quality.  In this spirit, at least one paper submission to a refereed conference/journal is expected of all M.S. candidates. The M.S. Thesis Defense committee is selected by the student and the advisor and approved by the CpE Program Director. The chair of the M.S. Thesis Defense committee must be from either the CS or ECE Departments. At least one member of the committee must be from the ECE Department and at least one member must be from the CS Department. Once the thesis has been written and approved by the advisor, a public oral defense is required. The format of the oral defense is a presentation by the student (maximum 30 minutes) followed by a question-and-answer period.

Curriculum Distribution Requirements

Every graduate student in the Computer Engineering Graduate Program must successfully complete 24 credits of graded course work for the MS including:

• One of the following courses:
  • CS 6354 Computer Architecture.
  • ECE 6435 Computer Architecture and Design.
• At least 9 graded course credits from CS (may include CS 6534).
• At least 9 graded course credits from ECE (may include ECE 6435).
• Of the 24 credits of graded coursework, at least 18 must be CS/CPE/ECE courses with the following restrictions:
  •  No more than 3 graded credits of independent study, no more than 6 graded credits of supervised project research.
  •  No more than 9 credits at the 5000-level of which no more than 6 credits may be from any one department. Only 5000-level courses offered in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Data Science may be used.