Carnegie Mellon University

Plan of Study

The MSE is a 16-month long program consisting of three traditional semesters and one intensive summer session. The program begins in the fall and concludes the following year in December. Project work begins in the spring, with the summer session devoted primarily to the Studio Project.

Courses in the first year are divided into 7-week mini-semesters to allow students to concurrently learn a wider range of topics, while scaffolding learning to more advanced topics later in the program. For example, Semester 1-2 is the second half of the first program semester, normally in the Fall.

Sample Course of Study

Semester 1-1

17-603 Communications for Software Leaders I
17-611 Statistics for Decision Making
17-612 Business & Marketing Strategy
17-614 Formal Methods
+ Elective course

Semester 1-2

17-603 Communications for Software Leaders I
17-622 Agile Methods
17-623 Quality Assurance
17-626 Requirements for Information Systems or 17-627 Requirements for Embedded Systems
+ Elective course

Semester 2-1

17-604 Communications for Software Leaders II
17-632 Software Project Management
17-633 Software Architecture: MSE (12 units)
17-671 Software Development Studio I 
+ Elective course

Semester 2-2

17-604 Communications for Software Leaders II
17-633 Software Architecture: MSE
17-643 Quality Management
17-671 Software Development Studio I 
+ Elective course 

Semester 3

17-672 Software Development Studio II
+ Elective course

Semester 4

17-673 Software Development Studio III 
+ Elective course