Students entering the master's program should have a background in computer science equivalent to that provided by the core undergraduate curriculum:

• C or C++ Programming Ability
• Object-oriented Programming
• Operating Systems
• User Interface Design and/or Software Engineering
• Data Structures
• Computer Organization
• Differential and Integral Calculus
• Discrete Mathematics

The prerequisites may be satisfied by courses taken as an undergraduate, by remedial course work taken while a graduate student, or by substantial practical experience in the computing field. Additional courses in mathematics and statistics are also desirable.

Students in the Operations Research specialization have different prerequisites, as follows:

• A full-year sequence in programming using a higher-level language
• One course in computer organization and assembler
• Differential and integral calculus
• Linear algebra
• Statistics
• Introduction to operations research