The BS/MS programs in Information Technology, Software Engineering, and Computer Science are five-year programs that give academically successful Loyola undergraduates the opportunity to pursue the MS degree in Information Technology, Software Engineering, or Computer Science while completing their BS degree. The applicant can be pursuing any of the BS degrees offered by the Department of Computer Science, including the joint majors with Mathematics or Physics or the interdisciplinary Bioinformatics.
These programs reduce the total number of courses needed and the total time needed for the combined degrees.
Students may not automatically enroll in the BS/MS program during Freshman admission. They must specifically apply to the Graduate School, generally in their Junior year.
Curriculum
The stand-alone MS programs each require 30 credits of graduate courses. This generally takes one and a half years to complete. BS/MS students must also take 30 credits of courses at the 400 level or greater. The main advantages come from the fact that some of the MS courses may be double counted, applying to the BS also, and there can be a shift in some of the required MS courses based on what students took in the BS portion. In particular students in the BS/MS program are allowed to “double count” 9 credits (generally three 3-credit courses) of their Loyola COMP courses for both their BS and MS degrees. Each must be a 400 level course taken in the student’s senior year in place of a 300 level major course. In addition, a student wishing to take 123 or more credits while an undergraduate, can have 3 of the extra credits be for a fourth 400 level COMP course, and count that toward the MS if the extra course is need for no undergraduate requirement, from the university, college, core, major or minor. Hence a BS/MS student with 120 credits and 9400-level COMP credits counted for the BS is required to take only 21 credits (instead of 30 credits) of additional 400-level courses. If a student takes a further 3-credit 400 level COMP course beyond the 120 credits needed for the BS, then only 18 further credits are needed. In either case students can finish the program in five years.