Computer Science Graduate Programs
Master of Computer Science With A Specialization in Business
33 credit hours
(Last updated Jan 2009)
The Master of Computer Science with a Specialization in Business is designed to help Computer Science professionals extend and deepen their technical and practical knowledge of the field while introducing themselves to core topics in modern business practices. Learning some of the basic language of business can help practitioners communicate with business analysts, nontechnical managers, and users of software systems.
Courses for the MCS/Business degree program are taken from the Computer Science Department and the IIT Stuart School of Business (SSB). To complete the program, students must satisfy general Master of Computer Science requirements and also take any 3 courses from the following list of 5 core MBA classes:
- MBA 501 Financial & Management Accounting
- MBA 503 Organizational Behavior
- MBA 505 Managerial Economics
- MBA 509 Managerial Finance (prerequisite: MBA 501)
- MBA 511 Marketing Management
Each class is 3 semester credit hours, and SSB tuition and fees apply to them. SSB does not currently offer courses online, so students must take their business courses at the IIT Downtown Campus in Chicago.
Admission to the Master of CS program is a sufficient requirement for admission to the MCS/Business program. In particular, students are not required to take the GMAT, apply to SSB, or take extra prerequisites before taking introductory business courses. Prerequisites within SSB courses, however, do apply.
Students must file a Program of Study specifying the MCS/Business before taking any business courses. In addition, each semester, a student must get the permission of the SSB registrar to register for business courses. To do this, the student should contact the Director of the MCS/Business program (Dr. Jim Sasaki), who will check the student's program of study and then ask the SSB registrar to let the student register.
For purposes of the Program of Study, 6 credit hours of the business courses are treated as CS-Related Transfer Courses. Because the general MCS program requires at least 24 credit hours of CS or CS Professional courses, the MCS/Business program requires a minimum of 24 + 3*3 = 33 credit hours to complete. A student whose bachelor's degree is not in Computer Science is required to take an additional 3 hours of CS or CS Professional courses, for a total of 36 credit hours.
Past coursework cannot be applied to the business requirement: A student who has already taken equivalent courses at IIT or elsewhere must choose from the remaining untaken courses on the list. If there are not enough untaken courses, then MBA courses approved by a Stuart School advisor can be taken as substitutes. A student who takes business courses and later becomes a student of SSB will receive only prerequisite credit (not course credit) for the courses taken.