Certificate of Graduate Study in Computer Science

Admission Requirements for the Certificate Program

Each student applying for admission into the Certificate in Software Systems program should have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related discipline with at least a 2.5 GPA.  Students with Bachelor’s degree in some other discipline must demonstrate a strong background in object-oriented programming languages and significant programming experience to be eligible.

International students are required to satisfy the USM TOEFL requirements. Scores for  Graduate Record Examination are not required for this program.

Students admitted into the program will be assigned a faculty advisor from the Computer Science Department.

Certificate Program Requirements

Students enrolled in this program are required to take four courses from a collection of graduate level courses addressing a variety of aspects of contemporary software development.  This collection includes COS 430, COS 541, COS 544, COS 558, COS 571, COS 576, COS 579, and COS 595.  Students may obtain approval from the department for other coursework to satisfy the requirement, in particular an independent study, COS 697.

In order to be awarded the graduate certificate in software systems a student must pass each of the four courses with a grade of C or better and attain an average grade of B in all four.

Graduate level computer science courses are generally restricted to graduate students who have successfully gone through an admissions procedure, but others may take them by permission from the instructor.