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Graduate Certificate in Software Engineering
for MS Computer Science Students

Students admitted into the MS Program in Computer Science may pursue a specialization in Software Engineering leading to a Graduate Certificate in Software Engineering.

The Graduate Certificate Program in Software Engineering provides knowledge, tools, and techniques to those who are working in, or plan to work in, the field of software engineering, but do not want to complete all the requirements for a master's degree in Software Engineering.

Certificate Requirements

Certificate students must complete five course in Software Engineering, with an average grade of B or better, for a total of 15 credits of graduate study. To obtain the Certificate, a CS student needs to take:
  1. Three required courses
    • SWE 621   Software Modeling and Architectural Design
    • SWE 637   Software Testing and Quality Assurance
    • SWE 642   Software Engineering for the World Wide Web
  2. Take two courses (subject to satisfying prerequisites) from
    • SWE 619   Object-Oriented Software Specification and Construction
    • SWE 620   Software Requirements and Specification
    • SWE 623   Formal Methods and Models in Software Engineering
    • SWE 625   Software Project Management
    • SWE 630   Software Engineering Economics
    • SWE 631   Object-oriented Design Patterns
    • SWE 632   User Interface Design and Development
    • SWE 645   Component-based Software Development
    • CS/SWE 706 Concurrent Software Systems
    • SWE 720   Advanced Software Requirements
    • SWE 721   Reusable Software Architectures
    • CS/SWE 735 Concurrency
    • SWE 763   Software Engineering Experimentation

A student who is interested in obtaining the Graduate Certificate in Software Engineering in conjunction with the M.S. in Computer Science may do so as follows:

  1. Completion of 30 hours of graduate course credit, including:
    • 12 hours incorporating the following Computer Science core courses:
      • CS 540   Language Processors
      • CS 571   Operating Systems
      • CS 580   Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
      • CS 583   Analysis of Algorithms
    • 12 hours or more of CS courses at the 600 level or above, which have at least one graduate CS course as a prerequisite (excluding CS 789 and CS 799). Certificate students should take:
      • 9 hours of required Software Engineering courses as follows:
        • SWE 621   Software Modeling and Architectural Design
        • SWE 637   Software Testing and Quality Assurance
        • SWE 642   Software Engineering for the World Wide Web
      • 3 hours of either:
        • CS/SWE 706 Concurrent Software Systems (Also satisfies MS CS specialization area requirement in parallel/distributed systems), or
        • CS/SWE 735 Concurrency (Also satisfies MS CS specialization area requirement in parallel/distributed systems)
    • An advanced CS course from a third specialization area (a CS courses at the 600 level or above, which has at least one graduate CS course as a prerequisite), which could include CS 798 or three credit hours of CS 799.
    • One additional course from the above list of elective Software Engineering courses.
  2. For students electing the project or three hour thesis option, presentation of the project or thesis at an appropriate forum approved by the Department Graduate Committee.

For Further Information

Additional information on the program is available from the MSIS Student Advisor (iseadvsr@gmu.edu)

Financial aid information is available at the GMU Office of Financial Aid