ACADEMIC PROGRAM
All candidates for the MS degree in Computer Science must satisfy the overall requirements of KFUPM in addition to the following:
- All students enrolled in the revised MSCS program are required to successfully complete 30 credit-hours of coursework and thesis. The coursework must include a total of 24 credit hours and a thesis of 6 credit-hours.
- The coursework must consist of 8 courses (3 credits each). Four of these eight courses must be core courses to satisfy the eadth requirement. The remaining four courses are elective courses. All of these courses must be of either the 500 or 600 level.
- The four core courses must be taken as follows:
- ICS 553 (required by all students).
- The other three core courses are selective and must be taken such that each course is from a different subject area. The qualified subject areas and their qualified core courses are as follows:
| Subject Area |
Core Course |
|---|
| Software Engineering |
ICS 511, ICS 512, ICS 513, ICS 514, ICS 515 |
| Systems |
ICS 531, ICS 532, ICS 533, ICS 535, ICS 536 |
| Net-Centric Computing |
ICS 570 |
| Artificial Intelligence |
ICS 581, ICS 583, ICS 584 |
- The four elective courses must include at least two ICS courses. Other elective courses can be graduate-level courses from departments of related disciplines such as COE, SE, MATH, and EE. Graduate courses from other departments are also allowed. Students must seek ICS departmental approval prior to taking any non-ICS elective courses.
- Students are required to attend and pass ICS 599 Seminar course which carries no credit hours.
- Each student must complete the ICS 610 Thesis of 6 credit hours on an approved research topic under the supervision of his graduate thesis committee.
- The approved thesis research topic must be related to a subject area in which the student has taken at least two graduate courses.
- A cumulative and major GPA of 3.0 or better must be maintained in all graduate and deficiency courses.
- All requirements of the Master’s degree for a full-time student must be completed during a total elapsed period of three calendar years.
