The program in computer science offers courses in most areas of
the
field and provides flexible options for advanced research. To enter the
program, applicants must have completed an accredited undergraduate
program in computer science or at least taken the core courses required
for an undergraduate degree in computer science. This includes a
substantial background in mathematics, especially calculus, linear
algebra, discrete mathematics, and probability/combinatorics. Students
should have at least one semester in all of these subjects and two semesters in
calculus. Finally, applicants should have taken programming languages,
data structures, algorithm design and analysis, computer architecture,
operating systems, and an advanced undergraduate level elective course. All applicants are required to take the Graduate Record
Examination's general and computer science examinations.
Candidates for an M.S. degree have two options. They may complete 30
credits of coursework and write an acceptable expository essay, or
they may take 24 credits of coursework and submit a master's thesis
worth 6 credits. The candidate also must pass the program's master
examination, which is designed to ensure breadth of knowledge. Courses
are offered to help students prepare for the examination.
A
candidate for the Ph.D. degree must complete 48 credits of coursework
beyond the bachelor's degree. Students who enter the program after
earning a master's degree may apply to transfer 24 of the credits
required for the lower degree. Normally, the program requires one year
in residence, but in special cases the department will consider
alternatives to full-time residence. In addition, the student must satisfy the community, breadth, and depth requirements before beginning his/her thesis research. To satisfy the community
requirement, students must register for the 1-credit "light seminar"
(16:198:500) in each of their first four semesters. For the breadth requirement,
students must complete two category A courses and two category B
courses with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher, no later than the
end of the fifth semester. Transfer credits may not be used
toward the breadth requirement. To satisfy the depth
requirement, students must complete (1) an independent study research
project by the end of the fourth semester, and (2) must pass a qualifying
examination by the end of the sixth semester. In addition,
the student must pass the qualifying examination before beginning
his or her thesis research. The thesis should cover original
investigations in one or more problems in computer science. A
master of philosophy degree is available to doctoral candidates.
Faculty
research interests cover nearly every aspect of computer science,
including algorithms and complexity theory, combinatorics, cryptography
and computational biology, numerical analysis, computational geometry,
computer graphics, software engineering, programming languages and
compilers, computer architecture, operating systems, distributed
systems, networking, security, information and database systems, data
mining, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, machine learning,
and computer human-computer interaction. Faculty members are also
exploring computational linguistics, networking optimizations,
streaming management, mobile computing and networking, sensor networks,
pervasive computing, vehicular computing and networking, and electronic
commerce.
Many of our faculty members conduct their research in research laboratories such as: the
Systems and Design and Evaluation Laboratory (Dark Lab); the Mobile
Computing Laboratory (Dataman Lab); the Laboratory for Network-Centric
Systems (DisCo Lab); the Energy Efficiency and Low-Power Laboratory
(EEL); the Pervasive, Available, No Futz Internet Computing Laboratory
(PANIC Lab); the Programming Languages Laboratory (Prolongs Lab); the
Security and E-Commerce Laboratory (SEC Lab); and the Vision,
Interaction, Language, Logic and Graphics Environment Laboratory
(VILLAGE Lab). The computer science department has close
ties to various research units and centers on campus providing students
and faculty opportunities to participate in collaborative and
multidisciplinary research. These include: the Center
for Advanced Information Processing (CAIP), the Center for
Computational Biomedicine Imaging and Modeling (CBIM), Rutgers Center for
Cognitive Science (RuCCS), Rutgers Center for Operations Research
(RUTCOR), and the Wireless Information Network Laboratory (WINLAB).
Current
research being done by the graduate faculty is expected to stimulate
doctoral research. All qualified doctoral students are eligible
to be considered for teaching assistantships and fellowships. Also, several grant-supported research projects have research
assistantships for advanced graduate students.
All faculty
and graduate student offices are equipped with networked workstations
connected to servers that support large-memory and massive parallel
computing. In addition, dedicated research and instructional
laboratories are available. All facilities are located in the
CoRE (Computer Research and Engineering) Building, in the Hill
Center for the Mathematical Sciences, and are run by the staff of the
Laboratory for Computer Science Research.
Further information may be found in the Graduate Program in Computer
Science, a brochure available from the program and on the web at http://www.cs.rutgers.edu.
