Graduate Education
About Our Graduate Programs
The Allen School provides students pursuing an advanced degree in computer science with robust educational and professional growth opportunities within a thriving scholarly community.
Our top-rated Ph.D. program enables students to build their research careers working alongside some of the leading minds in academia and industry while earning both their master’s and doctoral degrees full-time. For students currently enrolled in our own undergraduate program, we provide the opportunity to extend their time at the Allen School and earn a master’s degree immediately following their baccalaureate education. We also offer a part-time program for software professionals employed in the local technology industry to earn their master’s degree without pausing their careers.
Note: The Allen School does not currently offer a stand-alone, full-time master’s degree program.
Explore Our Graduate Education Programs
Contact: vgrad-advisor@cs.washington.edu
The Combined Bachelor of Science/Master of Science Program – also known as the Fifth Year Master’s Program – enables current and recent Allen School undergraduate majors to earn both degrees in approximately 5 years. Allen School B.S./M.S. students earn a master’s degree in approximately one year of courses beyond standard bachelor’s requirements. The program was created with industry-bound students in mind, to provide an opportunity for these students to gain more depth in their favorite subjects, increase their breadth of knowledge in subjects they could not fit into their undergraduate curriculum, and provide an efficient pathway to an advanced degree that enhances their career prospects. The Combined B.S./M.S. option is only available to computer science or computer engineering majors enrolled in the Allen School on UW’s Seattle campus.
Contact: grad-advising@cs.washington.edu
The Allen School’s full-time Ph.D. program is a research-intensive program in which students earn their Master’s and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Consistently ranked among the top computer science and engineering graduate programs in the nation, we offer a collegial and supportive learning environment, research opportunities of the highest quality, and the chance to collaborate with entrepreneurial faculty who are recognized leaders in their fields. The Allen School provides all students accepted into the Ph.D. program full financial support in the form of teaching/research assistantships and fellowships, from program inception to degree, and the program accommodates individuals with student visas. We are proud of our record of accomplishment in mentoring student researchers who go on to positions at the very best academic departments and industry laboratories — and in the process, produce research that drives our field forward while generating innovations with real-world impact.
Contact: masters@cs.washington.edu
The Allen School’s Professional Master’s Program (PMP) is a part-time evening program designed for fully-employed professionals in the Puget Sound region who are interesting in continuing on their career paths while acquiring critical skills to move them into positions and projects of greater responsibility and impact. The program can accommodate individuals on work visas, but not student visas. The PMP offers unique benefits to working professionals, including an opportunity to interact with other talented area professionals in a flexible, part-time learning environment that blends focused academic coursework and exciting colloquia with practical engineering and development insights and tools. PMP students learn from the Allen School’s world-class faculty who are internationally known for their contributions to key technical fields. Our faculty members bring the latest skills and knowledge, as well as their extensive experience, into the classroom to benefit your professional development, products and projects.
Specialized Degree Options
The Allen School offers two specialized, interdisciplinary options that students enrolled in the Ph.D. program may pursue as part of their studies:
Ph.D. Advanced Data Science Option
The goal of this program, which leads to an official university degree option listed on your transcript, is to move beyond the foundations of the field to provide an advanced education to students who are interested in pushing the state-of-the-art in data science method.
Computational Molecular Biology Certificate
The Allen School participates in a partnership between the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to offer this program, which provides an opportunity for students to engage in interdisciplinary research at the intersection of biology and computer science.