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We have created, piloted and are growing the Align program, a Master of Science in Computer Science (MS in CS) for post-secondary graduates who did not major in CS. Our goal is to create a pathway to CS for all students, with particular attention to women and underrepresented minorities. Indeed, women represent 57% and underrepresented minorities represent 25% of all bachelor's recipients in the U.S., but only 19.5% and 12.6% of CS graduates, respectively. If we can fill this opportunity gap, we will satisfy a major economic need and address an issue of social equity and inclusion. In this paper, we present our "Bridge'' curriculum, which is a two-semester preparation for students to then join the traditional MS in CS students in master's-level classes. We describe co-curricular activities designed to help students succeed in the program. We present our empirical findings around enrollment, demographics, retention and job outcomes. Among our findings is that Align students outperform our traditional MS in CS students in grade point average. To date we have graduated 137 students and 827 are enrolled.
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This content will become publicly available on February 12, 2026
An MS in CS for non-CS Majors: A Ten Year Retrospective
For the last 10 years, our university has offered a two-semester bridge into a master's in computer science for people with undergraduate degrees in non-computing disciplines. Since its inception, the program has expanded to eight campuses across North America and has opened admission to students from all disciplines, including non-STEM disciplines. The bridge program has over 2000 currently enrolled students, with more than 50% women every year since 2020, and domestic enrollment has increased relative to direct entry master's students. Our data show that bridge students, including those with non-STEM backgrounds, perform comparably to direct entry students in terms of GPA. We attribute much of the program's success to institutional investment in resources specifically designed to meet the unique needs of bridge students. These resources include dedicated academic and career advising, co-curricular programming, and the hiring of full-time teaching faculty specifically recruited to teach these bridge students. This paper examines data pertaining to the bridge program and MSCS from 2013 to 2023; it includes analyses of the expansion of the bridge program to eight campuses in North America, the admission of students with non-STEM degrees to the bridge, the achievement of enrolling over 50% women and non-binary identifying students, the success of bridge students in the MSCS program and in obtaining job placements, and domestic student enrollment growth as compared to traditional direct entry master's students.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2208797
- PAR ID:
- 10582664
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISSN:
- 0097-8418
- ISBN:
- 9798400705311
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1036 to 1042
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- graduate education bridge to masters.
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Pittsburgh PA USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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