Getting involved in research

Due to our small class size, Master's students have ample opportunities to do research work.  Research work is strongly suggested for students who

• might want to pursue a Ph.D. thesis,
• want to become more knowledgeable in focused areas of computer science or electrical engineering,
• want to learn how to apply the scientific process, which is to understand related research work, form a hypothesis, implement a computer program that encapsulates the hypothesis, measure the output of the computer program and thus the hypothesis, compare the results to the related work, and write up the results in a scholarly fashion.

Students can become involved in research by taking research credits. For the non-thesis option, students can count up to 6 credits of research towards their degree, the equivalent of two courses, which can count as part of their 6 courses in their major. 

Students interested in a larger research component can take the thesis option, which is described next.

Master's thesis option

The master's thesis option has similar requirements as the non-thesis option, described above.  For the ethics requirement, students must take CS 569 Scholarship Skills in addition to the ethics course, CS/EE 692 Ethics for CS & EE.  Students can also take up to 12 credits of research, the equivalent of four courses, which can count as part of their 6 courses in their major. Many students will take additional research credits in order to complete their thesis, giving them more than 45 credits in total. The thesis option might take longer than a year and a half. Students can take research credits in the summer.