Program Overview

Program Overview

The Master of Science in Software Engineering (MS in SE) is a three-semester program that consists of 97 units of graduate coursework (600-level and above).

Course Option Requirements

• 60 units of SE Core Courses
  • Required courses:
    • 18-652 Foundations of Software Engineering (12 units)
    • 18-653 Software Architecture & Design (12 units)
    • 18-654 Software Verification & Testing (12 units)
    • 18-657 Decision Analysis and Engineering Economics for Software Engineers (12 units)
    • 18-658 Software Requirements & Interaction Design (12 units)
    • 18-659 Software Engineering Methods (12 units)
    • 18-664 Software Refactoring (12 units)
    • 18-668 Data Science for Software Engineering (12 units)
    • 18-671 Foundations of Database Design (12 units)
• 36 units of Elective Courses
  • 24 units of these must be CIT courses
  • 12 units of your overall electives may be a General Technical Elective Course
• 1 unit of Introduction to Graduate Studies
• 1 Summer Internship (18-993)
• Preparatory Exception: 12 units of undergraduate coursework (300-level and above) may be substituted as part of the 96 core and elective units.

SE Core Coursework (Applied program)

The SE applied program requires 60 units (for the course option) and 48 units (for the project option) of Core Coursework that may not be waived or substituted.

CIT Elective Coursework (Applied program)

24 units (for the course option only) must be graduate coursework (600-level or above) within CIT from the following departments:

• ECE (18)
• Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) (39)
• Biomedical Engineering (42)
• Chemical Engineering (06)
• Civil & Environmental Engineering (12)
• Engineering & Public Policy (19)
• Information Network Institute (14)
• Integrated Innovation Institute (49)
• Materials Science & Engineering (27)
• Mechanical Engineering (24)
• CMU-Africa (04)

General Technical Elective Coursework (Applied program)

This is entirely optional. It is not required to take a General Technical Elective to graduate. However, if you would like to, please note that only 12 units of coursework (600-level or above) from the following programs (shown under their parent college) or individually approved courses will be counted toward your degree:

• Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Statistics (36)
  • Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (86)
  • Heinz School of Information Systems (95)
  • Heinz College-Wide Courses (94)
• Mellon College of Science (MCS)
  • Biological Sciences (03)
  • Chemistry (09)
  • Mathematical Sciences (21)
  • Physics (33)
• School of Computer Science (SCS)
  • Computational Biology (02)
  • Computer Science (15)
  • Entertainment Technology Center (53)
  • Institute for Software Research (08)
  • Robotics Institute (16)
  • Human-Computer Interaction Institute (05)
  • Language Technologies Institute (11)
  • Machine Learning (10)
  • Software Engineering (17)
• Tepper School of Business (TEP)
  • Tepper School of Business (45)

MS Graduate Project Coursework (Applied program)

Students in the course option may take up to 27 project units (18-980). 12 project units can count towards their Core Requirements and up to 15 project units can count toward their CIT Elective Requirements.

Restrictions for courses outside the College of Engineering

ECE master's students in the standard program will take 97 units for their degree, 85 units of which must be from within the College of Engineering (61 from within ECE, 24 from within CIT; see above).

Maximum units allowed

Students who are pursuing the MS Standard degree cannot register for their final semester if they have already completed 120 units of coursework. These units include courses taken for audit, pass
o pass, and withdrawal.