Graduate Studies
Graduate Studies Newsletter
Our Office

Student Services Center, Room 460
530-898-6880
graduatestudies@csuchico.edu

The Office of Graduate Studies
Business Hours
8 a.m.–5 p.m.
Monday–Friday

Mailing Address
Office of Graduate Studies
California State University, Chico
400 W. First St.
Chico, CA 95929–0875

More Contact Information

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Computer Science (MS)

Application Deadlines

  • Campus-Based Program
    • Fall: March-1
    • No spring admission
  • Online Program
    • Fall: July-5

Requirements
Graduate Record Exam (GRE) is required (graduates of an ABET-accredited program in computer science are exempt from this requirement). A GRE score of 300 or higher is preferred. Two letters of recommendation and a statement of purpose are required.

Program Coordinator
Campus-Based:  Tyson Henry
Online:  David Zeichick

Individual presenting in front of projected code.

Is the MS in computer science for you?

Do any of the following describe you?

  • Driven to understand how things work.
  • Enjoy solving problems.
  • Love to create, imagine, and build complex things.
  • Want a career in a dynamic, fun industry.

Student working at computer.

Do these jobs sound interesting to you?

Visit our careers page

Our alumni are:

  • Senior engineering manager at Salesforce
  • Manager of technology at Nielsen
  • Senior software engineer at Amazon
  • Senior software engineer at Roku Inc.
  • Senior solution architect at zData Inc.
  • DevOps engineer at BitTorrent, Inc.

Other possibilities are:

  • Integration engineer
  • DevOps engineer
  • Business intelligence analyst
  • Business systems analyst

Student pointing at laptop screen.

Is this the kind of salary you are seeking?

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows the following outlook for software developers(opens in new window):

Median Pay
$120,730/year

Job Outlook
25% (Much faster than average)

Environment
Private and public sector settings

Kendall Hall in Fall

What if my bachelor's isn't in computer science?

Students from any discipline can enter the program.

Students without background courses can take all courses after enrolling. Talk to the graduate coordinator for details.

Butte Hall exterior

How long will it take?

  • The MS in computer science is a 30-unit program.
  • A student starting with all prerequisites completed can complete the MS in three semesters.
  • Most students with technical BS degrees complete in four semesters.
  • Students needing all prerequisites will need five to six semesters.

What is it like to be an computer science master's student?

Three students working at computers.

Project-based Courses

Take project-based courses providing problem-solving skills and programming experience.

Student working at computer

Hands-on Experience

Benefit from significant hands-on components that ensure real-world software engineering skills required in today's marketplace.

Student inspecting network equipment rack

Specialization Options

Choose from elective topics in such diverse areas as artificial intelligence, database, networks/security, and visual computing.

Here's What Our Students are Doing

Student working at laptop

Open Source Software

A humanitarian open source software project to help campus food pantries manage inventories and improve how they serve students with food insecurities

Hand pointing at flow chart on paper

Deep Neural Networks

Developing Deep Neural Network models for Japanese Character Recognition

Student working at laptop

Speech Recognition

Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)-based speech recognition in noisy environments