Mar 28, 2024  
Rensselaer Catalog 2008-2009 
    
Rensselaer Catalog 2008-2009 [Archived Catalog]

Information Technology


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Undergraduate Programs

The objectives of the B.S. in IT curriculum are to prepare students to enter a rewarding career in IT and to pursue further professional and/or graduate education. The program:

  • synthesizes computing, systems, management, and humanities.
  • extends the student’s horizons from the focused core of IT to the disciplinary knowledge of a student chosen application domain.

It also promotes the integration of traditional education with engaged learning and the spirit of entrepreneurship that pervades the IT industry. The program is designed especially for students with interests outside the technical world, but nevertheless requires substantial technical talents and skills.

Graduate Programs

Rensselaer’s Master of Science in Information Technology balances the study of management strategies and technology leadership with advanced course work in an IT concentration. Students complete a suite of Core and Capstone courses and also select three to five additional courses to complete their Concentrations.

Eight Concentrations are currently available at Rensselaer’s Troy campus: Networking, Management Information Systems, Software Design, Financial Engineering, Database and Intelligent Systems, Information Systems Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction and Information Security.

Programs are individually tailored to accommodate students with a variety of entering backgrounds and career goals. The M.S. in IT can be completed with two terms of intensive study. A three-term option with an internship is also available.

The IT master’s is also available at the Hartford campus in Hartford, Connecticut and via distributed delivery complements of Rensselaer’s Office of Education for Working Professionals (EWP). Students enrolling at Hartford or through EWP should consult the following web site for concentrations, course offerings, and degree requirements:  www.ewp.rpi.edu


Applicants are expected to have prior academic records that indicate their ability to excel in advanced coursework. Prospective students should also have completed the equivalent to the following three Rensselaer courses prior to enrollment:

  • CSCI-1100 Computer Science I (number systems, basic computer architecture, stepwise refinement of algorithms, functions and parameter passing, basic programming concepts through two-dimensional arrays, and pointer basics using C++)
  • CSCI-1200 Computer Science II (pointers, classes, operator overloading, deep vs. shallow copy constructors, inheritance, file I/O, templates in C++, introductory algorithm analysis, and data structures)
  • CSCI-2300 Data Structures and Algorithms (advanced topics including mathematical induction and its application to algorithm design, linear structures, trees and balanced trees, heaps and priority queues, graphs and graph algorithms, backtracking, divide-and-conquer, and greedy algorithms.)

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is required of all full and part-time applicants in Troy. Substitution of the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) may be requested. Applicants to the Hartford campus will be notified in writing if results of the Graduate Record Examination are required.

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