Degrees and Certificates

The department offers a master of science degree, a master of engineering degree, and a doctoral degree in computer science. In addition, by satisfying additional requirements, any of these degrees can be awarded with an annotation in the student’s transcript with a bioInformatics option. We also have certificates available in data analytics, urban computing, and human-computer interaction.

Graduate student academic conduct is governed by the Virginia Tech Graduate Honor System.

This site presents the policies and procedures of the graduate program in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. The links at the right will guide you through the material. Mechanics that are common to all of the degrees are discussed in the Mechanics/Procedures section. The rules specific to a given degree option, certificate, or program can be found under Degrees and Certificates.

Every graduate student needs to be familiar with the material presented for their degree program along with the contents of the Mechanics/Procedures section. Students will also benefit from reviewing the Graduate School's Expectations for Graduate Study.

Be aware that the set of rules and constraints for your degree program are actually a combination of policies defined by the CS Department, the Graduate School, and sometimes other entities such as the Registrar's Office. This site presents these rules and constraints as you must satisfy them, without necessarily explaining who is the ultimate authority for any given one. It is possible that you will seek an exemption to some rule or requirement. This is when it becomes important to find out who "owns" that rule. In general, the Graduate School defines a framework for a degree program, and a Department fleshes this out. For example, the Graduate School requires that all PhD students take a Preliminary Exam and a Final Exam. The Department is free to define the mechanics of these exams, but not their existance, nor the scheduling process. So for example, it is a Graduate School rule that there must be a certain minimum amount of time between a Preliminary Exam and a Final Exam. So only the Graduate School would be able to grant an exemption (if they were so inclined).