Master of Science in Computer Science Online

Be at the forefront of the dynamic discipline of computer science. Learn from computer science leaders and develop mastery in cutting-edge frameworks, language and tools.

Apply by: 6/16/23
Start class: 6/26/23
Apply Now

Program Overview

Learn more about the M.S. Computer Science program

$16,500 Total Tuition
As few as 12 months Duration
33 Credit Hours

The online Master of Science in Computer Science program from Norfolk State University provides a rigorous theoretical and pragmatic understanding of computers and data systems, reinforced with hands-on research experiences.

Taught by leading computer science experts, the broad-based curriculum includes the latest developments in programming languages, databases, algorithms, communication networks and cloud computing. Explore the practical issues of hardware and software implementation, while learning about advanced computer architecture and operating systems. Tailor the program to your interests by choosing from a wide range of diverse elective courses. Culminate the learning experience with an advanced project that readies you to advance in your career or pursue a doctoral degree.

Graduates of the online M.S. Computer Science will:

  • Gain an understanding of cloud computing concepts, fundamentals and practical applications
  • Create, test and debug programs on both Unix and Microsoft platforms
  • Develop an understanding of simulation systems and their application in areas such as gaming, military, health, business processes and transportation
  • Design, implement and test gaming systems, 2D and 3D games
  • Develop deeper, broader industry-leading skills, including software development, object-oriented programming, Big Data and software architecture
  • Gain an understanding of cloud computing concepts, fundamentals and practical applications
  • Create, test and debug programs on both Unix and Microsoft platforms
  • Develop an understanding of simulation systems and their application in areas such as gaming, military, health, business processes and transportation
  • Design, implement and test gaming systems, 2D and 3D games
  • Develop deeper, broader industry-leading skills, including software development, object-oriented programming, Big Data and software architecture

Career opportunities:

  • Software Engineer
  • Database Administrator
  • Software Architect
  • IT Consultant
  • Computer Programmer
  • IT Manager
  • Software Engineer
  • Database Administrator
  • Software Architect
  • IT Consultant
  • Computer Programmer
  • IT Manager

Also available:

NSU offers a variety of online technology programs. View all options.

$16,500 Total Tuition
As few as 12 months Duration
33 Credit Hours
Ranked 7

Ranked #7

Among “The Top 10 HBCUs With the Best Computer Science Programs” by RippleMatch.com (2019)

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Need More Information?

Call 877-660-0459

Call 877-660-0459

Tuition

Discover how Norfolk State makes an online program affordable

Our student-centered focus is reflected in our affordable tuition for the online M.S. Computer Science. Gain a top-tier Norfolk State University education and benefit from the flexibility of paying by the course.

Tuition breakdown:

$16,500 Total Tuition
$500 Per Credit Hour

Tuition breakdown:

$16,500 Total Tuition
$500 Per Credit Hour

Calendar

View the upcoming dates and deadlines

With 7-week courses and multiple start dates a year, the online programs at NSU are designed to be ideal for working professionals.

Now enrolling:

6/16/23 Apply Date
6/26/23 Class Starts
TermStart DateApp DeadlineDocument DeadlineRegistration DeadlineTuition DeadlineClass End Date
Summer 15/8/234/28/235/5/235/8/235/8/236/22/23
Summer 26/26/236/16/236/21/236/26/236/26/238/11/23
Fall 18/21/238/11/238/16/238/21/238/21/2310/7/23
Fall 210/16/2310/6/2310/11/2310/16/2310/16/2312/1/23
Spring 11/16/241/6/241/11/241/16/241/16/243/2/24
Spring 23/18/243/8/243/13/243/18/243/18/244/26/24

Now enrolling:

6/16/23 Apply Date
6/26/23 Class Starts

Have questions or need more information about our online programs?

Ready to take the rewarding path toward earning your degree online?

Admissions

Explore the admission requirements for the NSU Online master’s CS degree

The online M.S. Computer Science program features a streamlined admission process to help you get started quickly and easily. View the full requirements for admission below.

  • Bachelor’s degree in related field
  • 2.8 GPA or higher
  • 3 Letters of recommendation

Applicants to the NSU Online M.S. Computer Science must meet the following criteria for admission.

  • Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering or related field from a regionally accredited college or university with a 2.8 GPA or higher
  • Three letters of professional recommendations, including one from a former professor (if possible). Letters from personal contacts will not be accepted.
  • One statement of purpose
  • Resume or CV
  • Professional work experience is not required

Courses

Explore what you’ll learn in your online master’s CS courses

For the online M.S. Computer Science program, you must complete 11 courses totaling 33 credit hours, including 12 credit hours of core courses, 18 credit hours of electives and a 3-credit-hour project course.

Students must take each of the following four courses:
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Focuses on the basic principles of computer communication as well as hardware and software designs. Topics include transmission media, data encoding, transmission techniques, protocols, switching networks, broadcast networks, and local area networks.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Topics include the history and evolution of operating systems, the concepts behind and structure of various operating systems, process scheduling, inter-process communication, input and output, multiprogramming, memory management, and file systems. Concepts of parallel systems are introduced.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Design and analysis of algorithms. Turing machines, NP- Complete theory, best, average, and worst case analysis, divide-and-conquer, greedy method, dynamic programming, graph traversal, backtracking, and branch- and bound techniques. Sorting, searching, graph algorithms, and optimization.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Computer Architecture Principles and advanced topics of the instruction set architecture for uni-processor, embedded system processor, and multi-processor.
Students choosing the General Track will take six of the following courses:
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
An introductory course emphasizing the basic concepts and principles of database systems. Topics include relational, hierarchical, and network approaches to data organization.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course is designed for IT professionals to learn computer and network security theories and practices that can be used to significantly reduce the security vulnerability of computers on internal networks or the Internet. The course assumes some familiarity with various operating systems and computer networks. Topics include cryptography, program security, operating systems security, database security, network security, security administration, computer ethics, and legal issues.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course is designed for Security System Administrators and Managers who are responsible for the design, planning and management of security installations in Business and Government Institutions. Topics include Management of Information Security, security planning, security protection (technical and procedural), best practices, risk management, Operations Security, legal issues and certification and accreditation. The course assumes some familiarity with various topics taught in an Introduction of Information Assurance course. Prerequisite: CSC 535.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
In depth study of concepts and problem solving techniques of artificial intelligence. Topics include knowledge representation, functional and logic programming, machine learning, natural language understanding, computer vision, robotics, and societal impact.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course introduces students to game design and development concepts. Topics include the history of games, genres, play elements, story and character development, game play and storyboard design, level and user interface design, and the game design document.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This is a project-oriented course on 3D Game Programming. Students will work in teams to design, implement and test a three-dimensional game with interactivity, game state diagrams, animation, sound, and constraints. Students will also learn the basics of graphic design and animation. Prerequisite: CSC 571.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course will introduce you to different types of simulation systems and applications. The course will cover an introduction on gaming, military, health, business processes and transportation simulations. You will work as a member of a development team and design simulation system for a specific application area.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Fundamentals of system and network programming methodology, techniques, system calls and library calls. Prerequisite: CSC 564.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence that is concerned with the design, analysis, implementation, and applications of programs that learn from experience. It offers some of the most cost-effective approaches to automated knowledge acquisition in emerging data-rich disciplines. This course is about learning to extract statistical structure from data, for making decisions and predictions, as well as for visualization. The course gives in-depth coverage of advanced methods in machine learning, as well as their underlying theory. It emphasizes approaches with practical relevance and discusses a number of recent applications of machine learning, such as recommender systems and malware detection systems. An open research project is a major part of the course.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Computational Science is a rapidly emerging field to foster collaborative research by teams of mathematicians, computer scientists, and scientists, to cover a wide variety of science disciplines. This is a one-semester course to provide students with an overview of applications of computational skills to solve scientific research problems. The computational skills in review include Programming Languages, Algorithms, Database Implementation, Internet technologies, Data Visualization, Statistics, Modeling and simulation, and Operations Research. The course will be team-taught by a group of scientists from Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Engineering departments and Center for Material Research, SciViz Laboratory and the B.E.S.T. Laboratory, and other applied science laboratories to cover a wide-range of expertise.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
A one-semester, graduate-level course focuses on the concept of internetworking in general and the TCP/IP internet technology in particular. The course reviews both the architecture of network interconnections and the principles underlying protocols that make interconnected networks function as a single, unified communication system. It also covers how an internet communication system can be used for distributed computation and communication. Prerequisite: CSC 530.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Intrusion detection systems, malicious software (viruses, worms, and other rogue programs), advanced risk analysis methodologies, international standards and computer security models (Bell and LaPadula, Biba, Clark and Wilson), network and distributed security, database security. Prerequisite: CSC 535.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
A one-semester, graduate-level course providing an introduction to data science which is experiencing rapid growth in research, development and deployment globally. This course is designed to provide students a solid foundation in data science, covering theories, techniques, and best practices in data science (including data manipulation, statistical analysis, and machine learning). An emphasis on labs and projects will provide students hands-on learning experiences in using popular open-source and industry leading data analytic technologies, tools and solutions, especially those in Python and R. Prerequisite: CSC 625.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Study of historical and modern cryptographic techniques and algorithms. Topics include symmetric and asymmetric key cryptography, one-way functions, secure hash functions, digital signatures, key exchange, authentication, key management, PKI, DES, AES (Rijndael), current topics. Prerequisite: CSC 535.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Fundamental concepts of the algorithms and design principles underlying modern 3D computer graphics, data and scientific visualization.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Analysis of Algorithms & Computer Architecture or Permission of Instructor Study of high performance computing techniques. Includes the study of parallel computer architecture, memory, and I/O. Also, parallel computer algorithms to include shared and distributed memory, parallel computation models, graph algorithms, numerical algorithms, divide-and- conquer. Prerequisite: CSC 625.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
An advanced, graduate-level course focusing on study of wireless sensor networks from communications, security, and computing platform viewpoints. Wireless sensor networks are a sensing, computing and communication infrastructure enabling the monitoring and manipulating of the environment.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course includes the major fields in optical networks, dynamic spectrum access in wireless networks, cognitive radio networks, network coding, and other newly emerged networking technologies. For optical networks, the topics include WDM network elements, routing and wavelength assignment algorithms, blocking probability analysis, virtual/physical topology design, survivability, and IP over WDM. For dynamic spectrum access or cognitive radio networks, the topics include enabling technologies for cognitive radio, channel assignment/selection, routing, security, and spectrum management. This course will also cover network coding and other new ideas.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Focuses on network defense and countermeasures, including firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, virtual private networks. Prerequisite: CSC 530.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
The fundamentals of applying biological evolutionary characteristics to optimization of very complex problems.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
A one-semester graduate-level course focuses on cloud computing technologies and solutions. It is designed to give students a solid foundation in cloud computing fundamentals. The course covers both the conceptual and practical aspects of cloud computing. Prerequisite: CSC 530.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to basic concepts and the latest research trends and results in developing secure software. Topics include the best practices in developing secure software within Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), vulnerability assessment, and code analysis techniques. Prerequisites: CSC 635, 650.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Survey of current topics in Information Assurance.
Duration: 7 weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Supervised independent project designed to give computer science graduate students an opportunity to explore a single topic in a one-to-one learning relationship with a faculty member. This will be the final course in the program.
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