Graduate CS Program For Non-CS Undergrads? 22
An Anonymous Coward asks: "Graduate CS program for non-CS undergrads? I have a social sciences degree from a respected university, with a moderate amount of math. I have realized that much of the most exciting/important thinking and research these days is in CS, and I am trying to get the foundations and understanding I need to think about these problems well. I have never taken a CS class, so I am looking for a grad school or program that will take such a student, crash-course the prereqs, etc. Any thoughts on how to accomplish this? I have seen what Ars Digita is doing but hesitate to go with an unaccredited program."
Have you had any CS-related learning? (Score:3)
That said, The University of Hawaii's [hawaii.edu] MSCS is open to non-CS bacchalaureates with a working knowledge of C or Pascal, provided you make up your undergraduate deficiencies (to the tune of about 18-24 credits, IIRC). But I'd definitely find out if I had a inclination towards CS before I jumped into an MS program, if I were you (if, of course, you haven't).
Back when I was thinking of getting an MSCS... (Score:1)
I looked into several schools. (I have a BA in Poli-Sci with lots of Math from econ.) For the most part, they require you to go back and take a good part of the core CS curriculum before you start grad classes.
Of course, you might never actually make it to the grad classes as companies start throwing money at you as soon as you hit the junior level classes.
I hope your luck is better than mine (Score:5)
I know in their prejudice that they looked no further than my degree in Geography. The two years of calculus and the year of statistics was overlooked. The 3 semesters of programming was overlooked. The logic class was overlooked. The year of physics was ignored. The fact that I was working as a systems administrator at the time (third year of the job) was ignored. I knew Pascal, C, and VB, and had to play with perl, sed, and awk on a daily basis (and several obtuse macro langauges dealing with GIS). Throw in teaching myself a helluva lot. (Having a great boss is why. He'd give me a manual and say, "We need to do X, figure out how to do it, explain it to me, then do it.")
Anyway, you'll run into lots of bias because you're not one of the little CS elves from the beginning. I gave up on a MS in CS, but that doesn't mean I'm recommending it. My life stabilized (got married), we moved, and I'm now well paid. I want to rid myself of the bad programming habits I have, but fitting in classes around a 50 hour work week plus 10 hours of commuting leaves little school time.
Go for it while you have time. Some of us work because we get paid, and some of us work because we aspire to be craftsmen, hewing form and function from raw ones and zeros. Craftsmen tend to live happier lives, because work is actually fun.
Re:Interesting programs... (Score:1)
Re:Have you had any CS-related learning? (Score:2)
Interesting programs... (Score:1)
Johns Hopkins (Score:1)
The program is aimed at professionals working in the field, classes are in the evening and weekends. Very competent instructors, usually working in their field. They offer classes throughout their satelite campus system, in southern MD and Montgomery county, MD, and well as Baltimore.
Re:Why do you want a degree? (Score:2)
University of Michigan (Score:1)
Their web site is www.si.umich.edu
Masters' CS programs for non majors (Score:1)
Mills College [mills.edu]'s program isn't bad.
Penn's [upenn.edu] program is more of an IT type than a true computer science curriculum, but they have the computer sciency courses too.
Think About Software Engineering (Score:3)
Basically, the coursework focuses on working in the software world, and is not as theory-driven as an MSCS, but in practice you get to do a lot of fun stuff. I just finished a class in distributed databases (as in building them), and next semester I have a course in info retrieval. If you want to eventually be an academic, then this probably wouldn't be the program for you (although there are PhD's in this). There are AI classes and all that, too.
Check out the nearest big state university (I'm sorry, gonna assume you are in the US) and see if they have either an MS in software engineering, a Master of Software Engineering, or a Master of Software Systems. The admission requirements aren't lax, but if you did well in undergrad, have good references, decent GRE scores, and you work in the field, you'll probably get into the program.
One warning - they will run you through a few courses (survey of software engineering, project management, SQA, and maybe even a programming course) that can be very boring but incredibly useful if you are going into business software development.
If you are interested in more detail, feel free to contact me.
Re:BS in CS is sometimes MS in CS (Score:1)
I don't have an answer for the AskSlashdot. My suggestion to help you be better than the people I'm bitching about, is to learn things outside of the classes. Practice programming, experiment with different languages and systems. The practical knowledge gained will be very useful.
Not all MS majors have a BS of the same topic (Score:1)
I'm actually looking forward to this sort of environment, with people of all sorts of different backgrounds. My hope is to be accepted to MIT's Media Arts and Sciences MS program, and as far as I know, there is currently no undergraduate program for it, although it is in development. Even if they do get it developed soon, it will still have been too late for me and the people who will be entering the MS program to have taken advantage of it.
how it works (Score:4)
Rice currently offers a professional "MCS" degree that requires its students to take 30 credits of courses (most CS classes offer 3-4 credits). For students with non-CS backgrounds, we generally try to figure out "what are the holes in this student's background" and we generally assign such students additional coursework to fill in their education. These additional courses don't count toward the degree. Admissions are competitive. You need to take the GRE (the CS subject test is optional), and you need to also send us three letters of recommendation.
Rice also offers a joint MCS/MBA degree, which draws from the business school and the department of computer science, and we have some other specialized masters programs "in the works."
Note: the MCS and MCS/MBA programs cost money, just like being an undergraduate. There is also an MS/PhD program where we pay you ("a stipend"). Rather than just taking classes, however, you're expected to do real research; it's years of work.
For all of these programs, we do have a number of students admitted from non-CS backgrounds. Of course, it's incumbent on the applicant to demonstrate why they have what it takes to succeed in the program.
Anyway, lots more details are online. Good luck to you, wherever you end up going.
http://www.cs.rice.edu/Applications/ [rice.edu]
BS in CS is sometimes MS in CS (Score:2)
The difference between the two is that for an MS you have 2 years of training, while a BS you have 4. I've seen a couple people get turned down who have an MS because they sucked relative to someone who had a BS.
So remember this when you're applying for a job... lots of companies think diddly of an MS in CS.
Re:I have been there... (Score:1)
We have these in Australia (Score:1)
a) you had achieved a credit or higher in a relevant subject (some sort of programming subject would suffice) from an accredited institution
b) Be prepared to pay boat-loads of money
I did one semester worth of subjects in one of these courses before it occured to me that my engineering degree and experience were enough to get me a job, which was what I wanted. The masters degree that was offered was by course work, I'm not sure about research.
I should have stated my case better. :-) (Score:2)
Something like, oh, 4-8 classes (12-24 credits) should take care of any weaknesses. The programs I checked with all wanted 60-80 credits before I could even start my MS. I was not given credit for any classes, including the C classes I took from a CS department. Since I had not a BS in CS, they wanted me to start from zero.
I think that's excessive.
Getting into CS MS without CS BS (Score:1)
A better approach is to take some UG courses before you apply. If you can show that you can handle the upper-level UG courses, they will probably admit you with few conditions. Look at the core courses in the CS BS program, and take the junior and senior level courses. Where I teach, we look at Analysis of Algorithms, Computer Architecture, and Operating Systems. YMMV.
Getting In w/out the prereqs (Score:1)
The company I worked for paid for Masters classes and counted any time spent in class as training hours, so I was able to take clesses during the day.
When I started my MS, I couldn't get admitted because of prereqs or rather the lack. I got around it by just taking the classes as a Non-Degree student until I had taken the follow-on to all the prereqs I didn't have. At that point they pretty much had to take me (with good GRE and recomendations). I even got a recomendation from one of the department professors.
I don't think this would work if you behaved or did poorly, but you might try it. Also, having an outside source of funding that the school didn't have to mess with seemed to help.
Good Luck,
Why do you want a degree? (Score:1)
Most companies don't give a shit if you have that piece of paper. Read books. Write code. Take classes if that's how you learn.
Decide what it is you want to do, and do it.
If you're stuck on the idea of grad school, you're probably doing it for the wrong reasons anyway. Believe me, your coworkers will not be impressed by your academic background. If anything, they'll scoff at you for wasting your time/money.
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Re:I have been there... (Score:1)