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Complete a Master’s degree at your own pace, at your own place! Busy professionals can complete a degree online while they continue to meet their current life and career obligations. The Siebel School of Computing and Data Science has partnered with Coursera to use its massive open online course (MOOC) platform to offer the MCS to students in a more flexible and affordable way than is possible on campus. Students can earn the Online MCS in as little as one year, or in as many as five years.
The Online MCS program is a non-thesis (coursework-only) degree that requires 32 credit hours of graduate coursework, completed through eight graduate-level courses each at the four credit hour level. The MCS requires that four of these eight courses are chosen from unique “core” areas of computer science, and that three of these eight courses must be at the advanced graduate level (500-level). The Online MCS currently offers coursework in the core areas of artificial intelligence, databases, human-computer interaction, software engineering, scientific computing and high-performance computing.
Students specifically interested in a data science focus should consider the University of Illinois Master of Computer Science in Data Science (MCS-DS) Track.
Who may apply? Applicants should hold a 4-year bachelor’s degree (or equivalent). Students with a bachelor’s degree in a field other than CS are encouraged to apply, but they must have prerequisite coursework or commensurate experience in object-oriented programming, data structures, algorithms, linear algebra, and statistics/probability. The recommended undergraduate GPA for applicants applying to the Professional Master’s program is a 3.2/4.0 or higher. The Siebel School of Computing and Data Science does not require GRE scores for any of its graduate programs. Applications for the MCS do not require letters of recommendation, but they will be considered if included, especially if used to justify experience in lieu of required coursework, or other irregularities.
If you complete an Illinois degree in CS, CS+X, Mathematics & CS, Statistics & CS, Computer Engineering or a CS minor with a GPA of 3.0 or better in the last two years of your undergraduate degree and a GPA of 3.2 or better in CS courses, then you are guaranteed admission to our Online MCS or MCS in Data Science (MCS-DS) programs.
There are different conditions for guaranteed admission to our Urbana MCS and Chicago MCS programs for Illinois students due to the limited capacity in those programs.
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Note: Each Online MCS course is four credit hours.
Must complete four courses (16 credit hours) each from a different area, from the following core areas with a grade of B- or higher.
Artificial Intelligence:
CS 441 Applied Machine Learning
CS 445 Computational Photography
CS 447 Natural Language Processing
CS 598 Deep Learning for Healthcare
CS 418 Interactive Computer Graphics
CS 445 Computational Photography
CS 416 Data Visualization
CS 519 Scientific Visualization
CS 450 Numerical Analysis
CS 425 Distributed Systems (Cloud Computing Concepts)
CS 435 Cloud Networking
CS 437 Internet of Things
CS 498 Cloud Computing Applications
CS 475 Formal Models Computation
Must complete three courses (12 credit hours).
Tuition rates for Online MCS and MCS-DS programs are listed under the “Grad Engineering & Engineering Related rate” as “Online Computer Science MCS – Resident” and “Online Computer Science MCS – Nonresident/International“.
The Siebel School of Computing and Data Science does not offer research or teaching assistantships to students enrolled in our online programs, including the Online MCS. The Online MCS program is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and enrolled students are eligible for financial assistance. See the Office of Student Financial Aid for further information.
If you are interested in receiving updates about the Online MCS, please complete Coursera’s Interest Form.
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Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science
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