About the Program
UMBC’s Accelerated Program enables students to begin working toward a UMBC master’s degree before completing their UMBC bachelor’s degree. Students in the accelerated program have the opportunity to double-count up to nine credits toward both their bachelor’s and master’s requirements. While a student can apply to combine any bachelor’s degree with any master’s degree, students are typically best positioned to pursue a master’s degree in a field closely related to their undergraduate studies. The UMBC Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering offers several Master of Science (MS) and Master of Professional Studies (MPS) degrees, most of which can be part of the accelerated program. This page is intended for the students interested in pursuing an accelerated MS in Computer Science.
The accelerated program consists of two phases:
- Phase I is the period during which a student has not yet completed their BS degree. During this time, participating students are still considered undergraduates, but may request permission to take graduate courses on a per-course basis. Students apply for Phase I around the middle of the undergraduate program.
- Phase II is the period after the completion of the bachelor’s degree, when the participating students are considered graduate students. Students apply for Phase II by the same deadlines as external applicants to the graduate program.
Time to Completion (and Optimizing Overlap)
The fastest (and most common) time required to complete a master’s degree in the accelerated program is one extra year beyond the bachelor’s degree.
For students who are able to achieve the nine credit (usually three course) maximum overlap between their bachelor’s and master’s degrees, there are:
- With a master’s thesis: 27 additional credits (about nine courses, two of which are CMSC 799) to take if one is doing a master’s thesis, OR
- Without a master’s thesis: 30 additional credits (about ten courses)
Optimizations During Phase I
- Certain graduate courses are only offered pass/fail (e.g., CMSC 696, 698, 699, 799). These count toward the MS, but cannot be used to fulfill any undergraduate major requirements, which require courses be taken for a traditional letter grade. These can be reasonable options during the BS if one is otherwise short on credit minimums outside the major. That is, one needs 120 credits overall to earn a bachelor’s degree, and 45 credits must be at the 300 level or higher. Pass/fail courses count only toward those minimum credit requirements. If a student is otherwise positioned to hit the 45 credit and 120 credit minimums, it’s best to put off the pass/fail graduate courses until after completing Phase I.
- Many CMSC 400-level electives are cross-listed with 600-level (graduate) versions of the same class. These pairings share lectures, but students enrolled in the graduate version of the class are typically expected to do extra work and held to a higher standard. You cannot count the 400-level version toward your graduate degree.
- There are some 600-level courses which have a strict prerequisite relationship to their 400-level version. For example, students must take CMSC 441 before taking CMSC 641, with the former required for the BS and the latter required for the MS.
- Students wishing to take a graduate course during Phase I must complete a “Request for Approval for Undergraduates to Take Courses for Graduate Credit” form to obtain permission to enroll. Students are advised to check with the course instructor beforehand. After submitting the form, students are advised to ensure the instructor receives the form (via Docusign) and responds to it.
- A graduate course may become full before undergraduates have the opportunity to enroll. If a student in the accelerated program already has a 400-level seat in a course that has a (full) 600-level cross-listed version, it is sometimes possible to get the seat converted at the beginning of the semester.
Optimizations During Phase II
The maximum course load per semester for a graduate student is ten credits in theory, but nine credits in practice. This because the CMSC graduate courses are almost all three credits each. To get through ten classes in a 12 month period, students typically take three courses in each of the fall and spring semesters, with one additional course during the summer session. Most classroom-based CMSC graduate courses aren’t offered in the summer, so summer options are typically CMSC 696 (course credit for a co-op or internship); CMSC 698 (course credit for an independent project); CMSC 699 (independent study credit); and CMSC 799 (master’s thesis credit). Another summer option is to take a graduate course from another degree program (e.g., one of the master’s programs offered by our department, such as CYBR) with prior permission of the graduate program director.
Research
Students in the accelerated program are more likely than most master’s students to get involved in research. This can take on several forms:
- While undergraduates, students can seek funding for mentored research work through the UMBC Undergraduate Research Award program or from a variety of sources available to professors. This provides prospective graduate students and their prospective advisors the opportunity to see if a project and partnership are right for them.
- A master’s thesis can be written over the course of at least two semesters, with two semesters of CMSC 799 (three credits per semester, for a total of six credits) counting toward the degree. A thesis is a document, written with a supervising mentor, and students pursuing the thesis option also give an oral presentation.
- Students can receive course credit for research without doing a thesis. All students are able to count up to six credits total of CMSC 696 (internship credit), CMSC 698 (independent project credit), and CMSC 699 (independent study, including research work). These six credits are allowed to be a repetition of the same course.
- Students can participate in research groups, working with professors and students in less formal ways.
By remaining in one institution across the bachelor’s and master’s degree, students are afforded the opportunity to conduct master’s thesis research over a longer period of time than is possible for most master’s students, as students in the accelerated program may begin a single research project as undergraduates which extends to the completion of their master’s degree.
A research-oriented master’s degree allows students to have demonstrated (e.g., through getting their mentored work published) that they are pushing the boundaries of their specialty area. Research also provides opportunities for experiential learning and for testing one’s knowledge against the limits of what has been discovered.
Funding
The accelerated program reduces financial cost of earning a master’s degree.
- Students pay less tuition by taking up to three fewer courses overall (relative to a bachelor’s and master’s with no overlap)
- Any graduate courses taken during Phase I are billed at the undergraduate tuition rate, which is lower than the graduate tuition rate.
- By completing their master’s degrees faster, students enter the workforce sooner.
Master’s programs differ from Ph.D. programs in their typical funding model. Ph.D. students in computer science are usually funded with stipends and tuition remission in exchange for service as teaching assistants (TAs), graders, and research assistants (RAs). Only a subset of master’s students are likely to be appointed to these roles. TA and grader positions are handled centrally by the department (more specifically, by the Graduate Program Director). RA positions are handled by individual professors, and most (not all) RA positions are held by Ph.D. students, due to their longer timeframes and the productivity a student can achieve by building momentum over several years.
As detailed in “Applying to Phase II” (below), some master’s students (including students in the accelerated program) may be offered TA or grader roles as part of the admissions process. Other master’s students may be offered TA or grader roles after having already accepted admission, as positions sometimes become available closer to the start of the semester. Some graduate students pursue their graduate degrees while working in off-campus jobs, although this may impact the time required to complete the degree.
Applying to the Program
Students first apply to Phase I and later apply to Phase II.
Applying to Phase I
Students are advised to apply for Phase I of the program only after completing MATH 151, MATH 152, MATH 221, CMSC 313, CMSC 331, and CMSC 341. Applying at that point (and not much later) provides the most options for taking advantage of double-counting, as many of the electives of the computer science undergraduate program can be taken at the graduate level and double-counted.
Applicants to Phase I are expected to have an overall GPA of at least 3.0 and an average of at least 3.5 in computer science courses. Typically, GPAs are much higher than these lower thresholds. Students with experience in research or independent project work are encouraged to apply, as demonstrations of research potential are valued and may help offset course-based performance history.
Applicants to Phase I of the BS/MS program in Computer Science should provide the names of two people who could provide a recommendation, preferably UMBC faculty members. The two people who are named will be contacted as needed.
Applying to Phase II
As students enter their final semesters of undergraduate study, students apply for the MS program as though they were not in the accelerated program, except that the GRE is not required and students do not need to submit a GRE waiver. Instead, they email the graduate program coordinator to alert the department, so that the lack of a GRE waiver does not cause any confusion.
Students should still take the GRE if they wish to be considered for offers of departmental support as part of the admission process (i.e., to be invited during the admission process to serve as a teaching assistant or as a grader). To be considered for these roles as part of the admission process, applicants must also apply by the earlier of the two application deadlines.
Admission to Phase II is based on most of the same criteria as admission into the regular M.S. degree program, namely academic record and letters of recommendation. Admission into Phase I does not constitute a promise to admit the student to Phase II.