The preparatory program is meant for students with an undergraduate degree in a discipline other than computer science. The preparatory courses are used to prepare students for graduate courses in MCIS. The program provides a basic background in three areas: analytical methods, programming languages and data structures, and systems programming. The grades for the courses taken in the preparatory sequence are computed into the student’s grade-point average, but the credit hours do not count toward the requirements for the Master of Computer and Information Science degree. Depending on a student's background, all or some of the preparatory program may be waived by a department advisor.

Analytical Methods

• OMS 500 Mathematical Models for Business
• OMS 503 Statistical Methods for Business Decisions
• CIS 505 Analytical Methods in Computer Science

Application Programming

• CIS 500 Introduction to Programming
• CIS 506 Data Structures and Algorithms
• CIS 530 Database Systems and Processing

Systems Programming

• CIS 535 Language Processors
• CIS 540 C/C++ for Systems Programming
• CIS 545 Architecture and Operating Systems

The prerequisite structure of these courses can be seen the diagram below: