MS Thesis Track

The MS Thesis track is for students who want to concentrate on research in some subfield of Computer Science.  You are required to arrange for a Computer Science faculty member who agrees to advise the thesis and the rest of your course selection prior to selecting the track.

1. Overall Requirements

Students must complete at least a total of 30 graduate credits.

1. Fulfill the 12-credit core requirement.
2. 9 required points of COMS E6902.
   
3. 9 additional elective credits of graduate courses selected from Computer Science and/or related areas together with your faculty thesis advisor.
   
4. Students using previous courses to fulfill core requirements may complete the 30 graduate credits by selecting additional graduate courses; at most 3 credits overall may be from "non-technical" graduate courses.
   

2. Core Courses

For the 12-credit core requirement, students take four courses from the following six:

COMS W4115 Programming Languages & Translators

COMS W4118 Operating Systems

COMS W4156 Advanced Software Engineering

COMS W4231 Analysis of Algorithms (same as CSOR W4231 Analysis of Algorithms)

COMS W4701 Artificial Intelligence

COMS W4824 Computer Architecture (same as CSEE W4824 Computer Architecture)

 Core courses may be imported from another institution.

3. Required Track Courses

9 points of COMS E6902 Thesis.  The points are typically spread over multiple semesters, e.g., 3 points each for 3 semesters or 4.5 points each for 2 semesters. No more than 9 points of E6902 may be taken.  Sign up for the section number of E6902 associated with your thesis advisor.

A thesis proposal is presented to your thesis committee at least three months before your defense and a publication-quality thesis document is published as a CS department technical report. You defend your thesis in a public presentation. 

The Thesis cannot be imported from another institution. 

4. Elective Track Courses

Candidates are required to complete 9 additional elective credits of graduate courses (4000 level or above) selected from Computer Science and/or related areas together with your faculty thesis advisor.  These would normally be strongly related to your thesis topic.

Up to 3 of these points may be in COMS E6901 Projects in Computer Science. 

The elective track courses cannot be imported from another institution. 

5. General Electives

Students using previous courses to fulfill core requirements may complete the 30 graduate credits by selecting additional graduate courses beyond the 9 points required for the track. At most 3 credits overall may be from "non-technical" graduate courses. All general electives must be approved by your thesis advisor.

6. Contact

Please direct all questions concerning the MS Thesis Track to Prof. Mihalis Yannakakis.

7. Graduation

Candidates preparing for graduation should submit a completed application for degree to the Registrar's Office and submit a track graduation form to C.S. Student Services (an example of a completed form is available here).