Master of Science in Machine Learning

Overview

This is a new degree offering beginning in the fall of 2023, coinciding with MSOE’s transition to a semester system. It consists of 8, 4-credit courses.

All courses will be offered online (fully virtual or in classroom with technology enabling remote participation). Many courses will be synchronous. The 4 classes that are part of graduate certificates (see track below) will be offered in the evening.

Students who were in the 2021–22 cohort of our applied ML graduate certificate, upon which the core classes in the MSML are based, were generally working full-time and said that it was better for them to take 1 course at a time instead of 2. So, for the master’s degree, that would translate to 3+ years depending on how many summer classes are taken. The program could be done in 2 years or a bit less if someone took 2 courses at a time.

We expect that many of the students in the program will have tuition support from their employers. Depending on the company, taking one course at a time might also be the best path from a financial perspective if the employer has annual limits on tuition support.

Note that the MSML program (and our ML graduate certificates) do not require letters of recommendation, although they are listed as optional on MSOE’s common application. Admission is strictly based on academic background and we personally reach out to applicants as needed to clarify any academic background that may be missing.

Please contact MSML program director Dr. Durant with any questions.

Dual Enrollment with Bachelor’s Degree

The MS can be taken as a 5-year early entry dual enrollment program with many MSOE undergraduate degrees including all EECS undergraduate degrees(BME, CE, CS, EE, and SE), AE, and CVE. Students must apply while they have junior standing, but should let their advisor know of their intent as early as possible.

4+1 Model Tracks for AE, BME, CE, CS, CVE, EE, SE

General 4+1 / Early Entry Policies Including Tuition

8 MB PowerPoint Overview Presentation on MSOE ML Programs

Official Websites

Catalog

Academics

Admissions

Landing / Information Request

Accreditation

Please see MSOE’s Accreditations for information accreditation at the university and program levels, including accreditation of all undergraduate programs in the EECS Department. Note that as of 2023 ABET does not offer offer accreditation for masters programs in any computing disciplines.

Machine Learning Careers In The News

Direct Admit Requirements (also apply to Graduate Certificate in Applied Machine Learning)

Curriculum

Required Courses

The 8 required courses comprise 2, 2-course subsets that each meet the requirements for a graduate certificate, plus 4 additional courses. Key prerequisites are noted here; more detailed prerequisites are noted below and in the graduate catalog.

MSOE CS students and graduates replace CSC5610 and MTH5810 with approved electives.

Example Plan

2-year, 5-semester (including 1 summer) flowchart with key prerequisites

Advising

As each student enters the program, the program director prepares a draft advising plan of which semester the student will take each course. Please contact the program director if you need a copy of your plan, and to make changes, such as increasing or decreasing how many classes you plan to take each semester.

Grade Replacement

MSOE’s machine learning programs automatically grant requests to retake and grade replace classes. This means that students in machine learning programs may re-enroll in a class without explicit permission. It also means that, if a grade below a B was earned the first time, the second grade can replace the original grade in GPA calculations. To take advantage of this option, students must notify their program director or coordinator. They will forward the request to the registrar’s office, which will then process the replacement at the end of the term. This must be done between week 2 and the week before exam week, preferably early in the term.

Notes on Specific Courses

Quarter System Applied ML Graduate Certificate (2021–’22 and 2022–’23)

Completing this certificate at MSOE meets the CSC5610 and CSC6621 requirements by substitution, reducing the number of additional courses needed to earn the MSML.

CSC5201 Microservices & Cloud Computing

Substitutions Allowed: Graduate Courses

There are opportunities to substitute certain courses for the CSC5201 requirement in the MSML and in the ML Engineering Graduate Certificate. CSC5201, CSC6711, or CSC6712 can satisfy the CSC5201 requirement. If MSML students take more than 1 of these classes, the additional courses are counted as MSML electives.

Substitutions Allowed: Undergraduate Courses

Students with sufficient coursework in both web apps and cloud computing replace this course with an approved elective.

Acceptable Web Apps Coursework

Acceptable Cloud Computing Coursework

Note: SWE2410 Design and Cloud Patterns is not sufficient to meet this requirement.

CSC5601 Theory of Machine Learning: CS Major and MSML Elective

Early entry CS majors have the option of taking this course to simultaneously satisfy their undergraduate requirement of CS3400 or CSC4601. Students who have credit for CS3400 or CSC4601 may not take CSC5601.

CSC6605 Machine Learning Production Systems: Alternate Prerequisites

Although CSC5201 is not a prerequisite for this class, students will benefit from having CSC5201 first whenever possible.

CSC2621 Introduction to Data Science (a course in the DS minor) is a sufficient prerequisite to take this course.

Also, CS and SE students will generally meet the following alternate prerequisites by the time they have early entry status.

Requirement Quarter Semester
(Databases and CS3860 CSC3320
Web Apps) or SE2840 SWE2511
Machine Learning CS3400 CSC4601

CSC7901 Machine Learning Capstone

The steps for enrolling in the capstone project course are:

  1. Get approval from the program director to begin your capstone in a particular semester.
  2. Find a capstone advisor and discuss and refine your project idea.
  3. Work with your capstone advisor to identify 2 other MSOE faculty members to serve on your committee. Outside committee members (e.g., the chief data scientist at your company) are allowed via adjunct appointments if they have appropriate experience and background, including at a minimum a relevant master’s degree.
  4. Complete the form posted on the Registrar’s website, get required signatures, and submit it. Then the class is added to your schedule for the next semester.

Capstone students may work individually, as part of a loosely affiliated group (e.g., regular lab meetings with advisor(s) to get feedback on work in progress), or as a team of two on a large project with clearly defined individual goals. Regardless, each student must submit their own capstone request form.

The following faculty are some of the potential capstone project advisors. Feel free to contact them to see if your areas of interest align with their expertise.

PHL6001

For MSOE undergraduates, this class cannot meet the undergraduate ethics requirement, and the undergraduate ethics requirement cannot meet this MSML requirement.

Many undergraduate majors allow a choice of ethics class. Students in these majors, if intending to pursue the MSML, should consider taking PHL3101 Ethics for Professional Managers and Engineers or PHL3103 Bioethics, which have almost no overlap with PHL6001. They may also take PHL3102 Ethics of Digital Technologies and AI, which has a partial overlap with PHL6001.

Course Details

Click on course numbers below to see catalog entries with course details.

Course Type Title Structure Offered Coordinator Prerequisites
BME5210 Elective Medical Imaging Systems 3-2-4   Dr. Imas ELE3300 | CSC4651 | CSC5651 | CSC4611 | CSC5611 | CSC6621
CSC5120 Elective Software Development for Machine Learning 4-0-4 summer beginning ‘23 Dr. Magaña CSC1110 | CSC1310 | consent
CSC5201 Required Microservices and Cloud Computing 4-0-4 spring ‘24, then fall Dr. Nowling CSC5120 | CSC1120 | CS2852 | equiv. software background | consent |
CSC5241 Elective GPU Programming 4-0-4   Dr. Berisha  
CSC5601 Elective Theory of Machine Learning 4-0-4 spring, 2024 then every fall Dr. Bukowy (((MTH2130 & MTH2340) | MTH5810) & (CSC2621 | CSC5610)) | consent
CSC5610 Required AI Tools and Paradigms 4-0-4 fall Dr. Nowling (MTH1120 | MTH2340 | MTH5810) & (CSC1120 | equivalent) | consent
CSC5611 Elective Deep Learning 4-0-4 F24 and spring beginning 2025 Dr. Yoder CSC4601 | CSC5601 | CSC6621 | consent
CSC5651 Elective Deep Learning in Signal Processing 4-0-4 fall, 2023 then again in 2025-‘26 Dr. Durant (MTH5810 | MTH2340 | MTH2130) & (CSC5610 | ELE3320 | CSC3310 | CSC2621)
CSC5661 Elective Reinforcement Learning 4-0-4 fall, 2024 then TBD Dr. Kedziora ((MTH2480 & MTH2340) | MTH5810) & (CSC2621 | CSC5610) | consent
CSC5980(1) Elective Topics in Computer Science (with Laboratory) varies      
CSC6605 Required Machine Learning Production Systems 4-0-4 fall ‘23, springs starting ‘25 Dr. Nowling CSC5610 | CS3400 | CSC4601 | CSC5601 | consent
CSC6621 Required Applied Machine Learning 4-0-4 spring Dr. Nowling (CSC5610 | CSC2621) & (MTH2130 | MTH2340 | MTH5810) | consent | CS2300
CSC6711 Elective Recommendation Systems 4-0-4   Dr. Nowling (CSC5610 | (CSC2611 & CSC3310) | CSC6621) & (MTH2340 | MTH5810) | instructor consent
CSC6712 Elective Distributed Database Systems 4-0-4   Dr. Nowling CSC5201 | instructor consent
CSC6980 Elective Topics in Computer Science varies      
CSC6999 Elective Computer Science Independent Study varies      
CSC7901 Required Machine Learning Capstone 4-0-4 all terms Dr. Durant ≤ 1 year to completion
MTH5810 Required Mathematical Methods for Machine Learning 4-0-4 fall beginning ‘24 Dr. Armstrong Enrolled in MSML
PHL6001 Required AI Ethics and Governance 4-0-4 summers beginning ‘24 Dr. McAninch Enrolled in MSML

Planned Offerings and Faculty Assignments