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UT MSCS

Program Overview​

Affordable + good reputation + high CS ranking + great location. Overall experience is quite good. UT's course quality is genuinely strong, especially with Austin as a city that has been growing rapidly in recent years -- Apple, Meta, Google, and Amazon all have offices there. Job opportunities are plentiful. Overall, if you want an MSCS with research opportunities, or are looking to transfer to a top-10 CS PhD, UT is well worth considering.

Admission Threshold & Standards​

Difficulty is slightly higher than MSIN. EE career-changers are welcome. Prefers candidates with strong research backgrounds.

  1. Top 10 liberal arts college CS, GPA 3.9, two publications
  2. Indian student, CS undergrad, GPA 9.62, multiple publications
  3. Indian student, GPA 9.49, multiple research internships including ETH research internship
  4. Tufts University CS undergrad, GPA 3.2

RA Opportunities & PhD Transfer​

As long as your advisor agrees, transferring is easy -- it's just a matter of switching your I-20. The admission difficulty is probably greater than the difficulty of finding an advisor who agrees to let you transfer to PhD.

Job Outcomes​

The job search atmosphere isn't as strong as CMU, but because there's no peer pressure from classmates at the same school, the job search data is actually fine. ECE and CS have similarly good outcomes. FAANG companies are all represented.

Career Fair has many big companies every year, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft.

  1. Indian student, CS undergrad, one year full-time work experience, landed NVIDIA and converted to full-time
  2. UT CS undergrad, GPA 3.98, landed AWS and returned
  3. UT CS undergrad, landed Paycom (this company only recruits from Texas schools)
  4. Tufts University CS undergrad, landed small company new grad
  5. Indian student, 2 years full-time at Morgan Stanley, landed Apple
  6. UT CS undergrad, landed small company
  7. UT CS undergrad, landed Apple intern
  8. UT CS undergrad, had open source contributions, landed Meta intern

Courses​

UT's MSCS program is a standard CS Master's. It shares many courses with the PhD program, so there are more research-oriented courses, and some course projects even follow publication-level standards. The program has two tracks: coursework and thesis. Both require 30 credits. If you choose the thesis track, 6 credits go toward writing the thesis, which means two fewer courses. Regardless of the track, you must take at least one course in each of the three areas: theory, system, and application.

For course selection, UT CS offers a very comprehensive and high-quality undergraduate curriculum. Many master's students take undergrad courses like Web Dev and Mobile Dev in their first semester -- lower workload and more practical. However, most graduate courses have significant workloads, especially research-oriented courses. Some require reading papers for every class session, and some are pure theory algorithm courses that involve almost no coding -- just deriving formulas and proofs. In terms of course selection priority, second-year master's students have higher priority, so first-years may have slightly more difficulty getting into popular courses.

Specifically, CS courses cover a broad range. Systems enthusiasts can take Operating Systems, Networking, and Distributed Systems. AI/ML enthusiasts can take NLP, Reinforcement Learning, and Deep Learning. For web-focused students, there are Web Dev, Cloud Computing, and similar courses. Most courses have non-trivial workloads, for example:

  1. NLP course (Natural Language Processing): Projects need to follow ACL/NeurIPS paper format. Assignments include HMM/CRF and similar topics -- definitely challenging.
  2. Algorithms course: No coding, pure theory -- covers NP-completeness, approximation algorithms, Fibonacci heaps. All assignments are proof-based, suitable for theory enthusiasts.
  3. Web Development: If you're interested in web dev, you can take Modern Web Application. Many students take this course and then pursue Full Stack positions.
  4. CS seminars: Every class requires reading papers, suitable for those who want to dive deep into a specific area such as systems, AI, databases, etc.

Living Experience​

Austin is really hot. In mid-September, it can still be over 30 degrees Celsius (86 F) at 5-6 PM, so sunscreen is a must when going outside. The upside is that winters aren't too cold -- the coldest is reportedly still above freezing, unlike the blizzards on the East Coast or Midwest.

For daily life, Austin has everything you need. Groceries are available at Walmart, HEB, and 99 Ranch Market, and prices are reasonable. For housing, Far West is the main Chinese student hub, with rent around $600-800/month. West Campus is mainly undergrads, slightly pricier at $800-1000, but closer to campus -- a 10-minute bike ride to the CS building without waiting for the campus bus, which is a great experience.

Socially, UT has many International Student Activities, but most CS graduate students are busy grinding LeetCode and job searching, so not many actually attend. Networking opportunities in CS are plentiful, with many major companies hosting dedicated events for campus recruiting each year, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Bloomberg, and Goldman Sachs. Additionally, UT has a Friends of Computer Science (FoCS) program that brings companies in almost every day -- walking into the department building, you'll see people lining up to submit resumes.