<p>I currently go to a decent math program at UT Austin and am about to graduate with my B.S. in Mathematics but am looking to do CS for grad school. How difficult will it be to do graduate level coursework given that my undergrad wasn't in CS? I am applying to some schools that may be considered lesser recognized (Houston, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, UNT, etc). I understand grad schools have background/leveling courses they want you to have before being admitted to their program or starting. Would completion of those courses be sufficient for being prepared for graduate level work? Some of these grad programs will list just 5 or so classes (intro comp sci 1 and 2, data structures, computer architecture, operating systems) but I'm unsure if these classes are really enough to do graduate level coursework or if my professors will teach assuming that I already know _____ and then it turns out that wasn't a course listed on the background/leveling requirements. If many other CS grad students turn out to be former CS undergrads and are taking grad level courses of versions they already took as an undergrad, I feel that it'd be tough for me. I've tried asking graduate advisors for the difficulty of doing a CS masters there as a non-cs undergrad but the response I usually get is something like "we have seen some successful students who do this and some unsuccessful students." :( What do you guys think?</p>
<p>It is certainly possible but your professor is right. Some are successful and some unsuccessful. On the other had even for those students who come in with a CS degree, some are successful and some are not.</p>
<p>I have seen a lot of students do this at my university and usually they succeed when they are motivated to work hard. Mathematics is not a bad place to start from.</p>
<p>You probably do want to have knowledge equivalent to the frosh/soph level CS courses and the junior/senior level CS courses leading to your graduate specialty. As a math major, you will probably find undergraduate CS theory courses to be relatively easy. If you like algebra and number theory in math, you may find cryptography of interest. Computer architecture, operating systems, and algorithm/complexity theory are good to know as general CS background.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses guys! I have noticed some of the grad school masters programs I have on my grad school list do not offer PhD’s of computer science and some do. What sort of differences are there for being a masters student at a grad school that also has a PhD version of that degree vs a grad school that doesn’t have a PhD version? I have no intention of getting a PhD but I’m wondering if it would be better for me to go to a grad school that doesn’t have a PhD in CS because that would mean I don’t have to worry about competing with PhD students in my courses so maybe the professors would be more likely to not assume a strong CS background in their students? Possibly it could be easier to get funding too but for sure that depends on the school.</p>
<p>Programs which do not have a Ph.D. are more likely to want you to do a M.S. thesis. Those with a Ph.D. program are likely to have M.S. students in a more professional, coursework only, program. There are always exceptions or course.</p>
<p>@SadHippo, I would not make assumptions. It’s really dependent on the school.</p>