Admissions
Requirements
Applicants to the Master's program in Software Engineering must hold a bachelor's degree from an institution accredited by one of the regional accrediting agencies, with an undergraduate GPA of at least 3.0. In addition, they must meet the following undergraduate prerequisites:
Programming Proficiency: Students entering either of our graduate programs are required to have proficiency in a modern computer programming language such as Java, C++, or C. Because of the importance of the object paradigm in modern computing systems, Java, C++ or another object-oriented language is highly recommended. Programming proficiency must include the following:
- Fundamental data structures, such as arrays, lists, stacks, queues, and trees
- Elementary iterative and recursive algorithms, including searching and sorting techniques
Computing Systems: Undergraduate work in computer organization or computer architecture and operating systems is required. The relevant topics include the following:
- Information representation
- CPU organization, operation, instructions sets, scheduling
- Memory organization, memory management
- File systems
- Concurrency, processes, threads
Mathematical Preparation: An undergraduate course in discrete structures (sometimes called discrete mathematics) is necessary for many aspects of computing. Additional requirements include two semester of calculus plus probability and statistics.
Options for Meeting the Prerequisites
The prerequisites may be completed at any accredited college or university, including community colleges. Villanova offers the required prerequisite undergraduate courses that may be taken through the part-time studies program if not already enrolled at Villanova. Those courses are:
- CSC 1051: Algorithms and Data Structures I
- CSC 1052: Algorithms and Data Structures II
- CSC 1300: Discrete Structures
- CSC 2400: Computing Systems I
International Students need to submit additional application materials:
- Official TOEFL scores.
- Credentials Evaluation.
- Financial Certification.
Send all application materials to:
Office of Graduate Studies
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Villanova University
800 Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA 19085
