Master's Degree in Computational Science

In today's economy, there is an increasing need for students who possess scientific and computational expertise as well as management and leadership skills. The Master's Degree in Computational Science allows students to choose the option of completing the requirements for the Professional Science Master's Program (PSM) or a standard M.S. track in computational science.

Two main tracks

All students entering this master's degree program should have a strong desire to do computational science. However, we can broadly classify students into two groups and have developed the program to meet the needs of these two groups. The first group of students are those pursuing a Ph.D. in Computational Science and who want to complete the requirements for a Master's degree; these students will follow the major track. The second group of students are interested in acquiring a terminal Master's degree with the expectation of obtaining employment in industry or a government facility. For this group of students, we have established PSM tracks, which meet the Sloan Foundation's criteria.

Professional Science Master's Degree

The PSM is a two year, professional degree program that prepares students to work outside of an academic setting in industry, government or a national laboratory. The goal of the program is to train students to be technically adept in computational science, to acquire knowledge of an applied science, as well as to be able to manage a project, work in teams and to effectively communicate ideas and results. The PSM program differs from other master's degree programs in science and mathematics at FSU due to its business component and the ties to industry, government and laboratories through the summer internship and the seminar/colloquium series.

In addition, the innovative computational science curriculum endeavors to provide students with a working knowledge of a wide variety of tools and algorithms and the ability to combine these tools and understand their inter-relationships. For more information about the objectives of a PSM program, see the website http://www.sciencemasters.com supported by the Sloan Foundation.

Coursework and Credits

The coursework for the M.S. degree program is based on 32 credit hours for the major track (standard M.S. in Computational Science) and 36 for the PSM tracks. The commonality in the coursework for both tracks is that each student must take two core computational science courses (Group A courses) as well as a minimum of 9 credit hours in other computational science courses (Group B courses) plus 6 additional credit hours selected from existing departmental courses in computer science, engineering, mathematics or an applied science (Group C courses).

In addition, if a student is following the PSM track then he/she must take 6 credit hours from non-science courses (Group D courses) such as project management courses and complete a summer internship program or the equivalent for an additional 6 credit hours. There is a total of 22 credit hours of coursework that is specified for the major track and 28 for the PSM track with an additional 6 credits for the internship. Additional credit hours may be obtained through thesis hours, seminars, or other courses selected from Groups B or C or related courses approved by the student's supervisory committee. The program is set up to be completed in two years.

Required and elective courses

More information on the courses listed below can be found on our course list.

The required core courses (Group A) consist of:

  • Introduction to Scientific Programming (3 credits)
  • Applied Computational Science I (4 credits)

The elective core courses (Group B) consist of courses such as:

  • Applied Computational Science II (4 credits)
  • Numerical Methods for Earth and Environmental Sciences
  • Monte Carlo/Markov Chain Simulations
  • Survey of Numerical PDEs
  • Programming Skills for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
  • Computational Evolutionary Biology
  • Introduction to Bioinformatics
  • Photorealistic Computer Graphics
  • Parallel Programming, Algorithms and Architectures
  • Computational Finite Element Methods
  • Numerical Methods for Stochastic Differential Equations
  • Molecular Dynamics
  • Computational Biophysics
  • Numerical Linear Algebra

Master's tracks

We have established the following tracks for the M.S. degree program:

  • M.S. in Computational Science (major track)
  • M.S. in Computational Science with a Professional Science Master's track
  • M.S. in Computational Science with a Professional Science Master's track with a Specialization in Computational Molecular Biology/Bioinformatics.

Additional tracks may be added as the need arises.

Application & Information

The program is open to students holding a bachelor's degree in the applied sciences, mathematics, computer science or engineering. We are currently accepting applications for Fall 2007. You can apply for the graduate programs online.

For further information concerning this M.S. program at FSU contact Professor Janet Peterson, graduate coordinator, or Eva Ronquist, graduate program assistant, both at education@scs.fsu.edu. Please check back periodically to the website for updates to the program.