Montclair State University Master in Computer Science FAQ

Please find the curriculum of Master in Computer Science and the Combined BS/MS in Computer Science in the hyperlink.

To complete your program, you must take CSIT 696 and one of CSIT 697 and CSIT 698. CSIT 697 and 698 can only be registered after you finish CSIT 696. These are not regular courses that are taught through lectures. Instead, they are one-on-one research projects under the supervision of an advisor. You need to find an advisor to supervise your study. Advisor list and their research interests can be found here: https://www.montclair.edu/computer-science/staff-directory/.

Please note that these two courses should be supervised by the same advisor. Students usually do CSIT 696 in the second last semester, and CSIT 697/698 in the last semester. Once you reach an agreement with an advisor, please fill out this form and send it to your advisor, the Department Chair Dr. Constantine Coutras(coutrasc@mail.montclair.edu) and the Associate Dean Dr. Scott Kight (kights@mail.montclair.edu) for their signatures.

Every semester (including spring, summer and fall), we offer a list of courses. You can find them on NEST. Note that you cannot take any course with section number 51. Those are reserved for online master students. If you mistakenly register any of them, you will be charged at a higher tuition rate.

Courses in Summer 2023

Courses in Fall 2023

You can find the details, including the last day to register and withdraw, on this webpage.

In this program, there are four bridge courses, i.e., CSIT 501, 502, 503 and 504. Bridge courses are designed for students without sufficient computer science background. When the department reviews your application, we may require some students to take them. The detailed information about the bridge courses can be found here. If you are required to take any bridge course, you cannot take any other course before finishing them. Besides, in order to be full matriculated into the official program, you must have a 3.0 or higher GPA in your bridge courses. Otherwise, you will be dismissed from the program. We offer all bridge courses every spring, summer and fall semester. Please note that bridge courses are offered at a fast pace (8 weeks).

First of all, go to this catalog to find the pre-requisite of each course.

If you have taken the pre-requisite course previously, please send me (dongb@mail.montclair.edu) an email from your Montclair email address to request a permit. The email title should be “Permit Request for CSIT {Course Number}”.

In the email body, include

If you fail to comply with the specs, a permit will not be entered.

You cannot register a course if it is full. To prevent it from happening, you should enroll in the courses once the registration window is open. Otherwise, you need to keep a close eye on NEST to see if any seat becomes available.

There are two ways to contact a professor.

• Send an email. Make sure that you send the email from your Montclair email address. Be professional and polite in the email. Call the professor Prof. or Dr. {LastName}. Make your email title self-explainable.

• Go to a professor’s office hour. Every professor has an office hour in the spring and fall semester. You can find his/her office address and office hour time on the university website. Simply google “Montclair State University {Professor Name}”, you will be able to find it. For example, my office hour information can be found at here.

If you are an international student, you need to take at least 9 credits per semester except for the last one. Besides, you can only take at most one online course per semester. Failing to comply with these rules will result in the loss of your F1 status. If you are a domestic student, there is no minimum credit requirement per semester.

Any graduate should take at most 15 credits per semester. Under rare circumstances (you maintain a 3.0+ GPA and file a course overload application), you can take more than 16 credits per semester.

Yes. You must have a 3.0 or higher GPA to graduate. For one semester, if your GPA goes below 3.0, you will be on probation status. In that case, you must raise your GPA to at least a 3.0 within the next six credits of course work taken within the next two semesters from the date of notification of probation. For international student, this is one semester. Failing to do it will result in an academic dismissal.

You need the send me an email titled “Credit Transfer Request from MS CS Student”. In the email body, include your name, CWID (start with letter M and have 8 digits following it), your official transcript and the course syllabus.

First, check if you are eligible for CPT on this webpage. If yes, please send your job offer letter and job description to Dr. Boxiang Dong (dongb@mail.montclair.edu) with the title “CPT Request for {Your Name}” from your MSU email address.

In general, you do not need to apply for it. If you are doing great (maintain an excellent GPA and conducting research projects with a professor), you will be contacted by the department prior to the start of a semester for scholarships.