Software Engineering Graduated Degree Requirements - School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence

Degree requirements

The MS in Software Engineering requires a minimum of 30 credit hours. These credit hours must include the following:

30 credit hours including the software factory capstone course (SER 517 (3)), or
30 credit hours including the thesis courses (SER 599, (6))

Coursework

Core courses (9 credit hours)**

SER 501 Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms (3)
SER 502 Emerging Languages and Programming Paradigms (3)
SER 515 Foundations of Software Engineering (3)

Elective courses (15-18 credit hours, depending on culminating experience)**

Students are encouraged to identify 5-6 elective courses (15-18 credits) of specialization that contributes to their individual education objectives. Program faculty offer optional graduate-level courses that provide specialized treatment in areas such as embedded systems, semantic web engineering, software design, human-computer interaction, and so forth. Parameters for elective courses are as follows:

Software Engineering Required Electives (6 credits)
All students must choose two courses from the Software Engineering Elective pool:

CSE 563 Software Requirements and Specifications (3)
CSE 564 Software Design (3)
CSE 565 Software Verification, Validation, and Testing (3)
CSE 566 Software Project, Process, and Quality Management (3)
SER 516 Software Agility (3)
SER 574 Advanced Software Design (3)

The remaining electives will be determined by choosing one of the following options:

Option 1: General Degree: Free Electives (9-12 credits)
Any combination of the following:

SER 500-level courses (no maximum)
The CSE Software Engineering Elective series (CSE 563, CSE 564, CSE 565, and CSE 566; no maximum)
a maximum of one course may be a SER 400-level course (see the approved course list below)
a maximum of one course may be a CSE 500-level course outside of the CSE 563-566 CSE Software Engineering Elective series (see the approved course list below)

Option 2: Cybersecurity Specialization (9-12 credits)

Required: CSE 543 Information Assurance and Security
Choose 2 courses from:
- CSE 539 Applied Cryptography
- CSE 545 Software Security
- CSE 548 Advanced Computer Network Security
- CSE 591 Cybersecurity-related topic
Capstone option: Remaining course must be drawn from the SER 5XX/4XX elective courses or by taking an additional software engineering required elective.
- Maximum of 3 credits of SER 4XX-level coursework

Comparison of general degree and cybersecurity specialization