Masters Program

Student studying in Comal

Texas State University promises a variety of educational, professional, social, and cultural opportunities for its graduate students. The Department of Computer Science offers superior graduate degree programs to students seeking a Master of Science with a major in computer science. Students are required to fulfill background course work if they do not have adequate undergraduate computer science background.

The department also offers a Master of Arts degree in computer science. The MA in computer science is similar to the MS in computer science except that it requires a minor. These programs are designed to prepare students for doctoral research, college teaching, public school teaching, or for careers in computer science as well as in software engineering. The department strives to advance the knowledge of computer science and is well equipped with computer hardware, software, modern electronics, and microcomputer laboratories. 

The Texas State Graduate College publishes the Graduate Catalog that provides program details and other information for graduate students. 

For information regarding the Ph.D. program, please contact the Ph.D. Program Director or reference the department's doctoral page

 

Graduate enrollment in the computer science and software engineering programs has increased multi-fold since 1984, the program's year of inception, and exceeds 180 students. Special efforts are made to schedule evening classes to accommodate computing professionals who wish to continue their education. The department also offers a limited number of laboratory and research assistantships for qualified students, although not usually in their first semester of study at Texas State, and teaching assistantships which require completion of at least eighteen graduate credit hours at Texas State. The department also offers some Masters-level courses in computer science in the North Austin area (Round Rock campus) for the convenience of working professionals as well as full-time students in that vicinity.

The Master of Science degree in computer science offers specialties in a wide range of areas. Analysis skills and real world problem solving are integrated in all graduate courses. These skills are vital for the design, development, maintenance, management, and supervision of complex computer systems. For more information, please follow this link.

The Master of Science degree in computer science with concentration in data science encompasses big data, employs machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), statistical and other advanced models and techniques on big data. The work of data science can help identify valuable knowledge that is impossible or extremely difficult to obtain previously. For more information, please follow this link.

Software engineering is the application of scientific knowledge to the development and maintenance of software systems. The Software Engineering concentration covers the methods of software synthesis and analysis and exposes students to rigorous software processes, automated process enactment, program analysis algorithms, in particular model checking, verification by proof, symbolic evaluation, runtime verification and test generation techniques. For more information, please follow this link.

With the support of the university, the National Science Foundation, and other sources, the department has established excellent laboratories in all areas of instruction. In addition to university computing facilities, departmental labs provide student access to state-of-the-art multimedia-oriented Intel, AMD, Apple, and Sun Microsystems servers and workstations with 32-bit and 64-bit microprocessors running current versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS Linux and Solaris. Application platforms include Oracle and MySQL relational database management systems, Oracle WebLogic, VMWare, Apache HTTP Server, and a wide range of compilers and assemblers, including the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), Visual Studio .NET, Java Software Development Kit (SDK), and the Sun C Compiler. Hands-on experience and implementation of concepts and methodologies covered in classes is emphasized.

In addition to grant-funded research in several areas of computer science, the computer science faculty joins with industry to focus on projects of mutual interests. The department's Industrial Advisory Board is also an important component in maintaining strong ties with industry. Students gain industrial experience through internship programs with industry. And, the university provides an excellent library facility.

Program graduates find employment in numerous fields, including software engineering, intelligent systems, networking and communication, database design, man-machine communication, graphical user interfaces, Unix programming, object-oriented systems, multimedia, operating systems, simulation and modeling, computer architecture and design, parallel processing, distributed systems, neural networking, and other application areas. A master's degree can also help advance an established career or provide multiple career paths. 

Graduate College thesis information
Computer Science Thesis courses -  request registration, forms