Advising and Program Overview

The Program Director and Graduate Coordinator oversee all aspects of study while students are enrolled in the program.  Students can pick their own faculty advisor if they are interested in conducting campus-based research for their masters project requirement, otherwise, the Graduate Coordinator and Program Director are considered the students' advisors throughout their course of study. 

Effective Fall 2023, students will be required to complete 8 core classes (24 credits), 1 elective (3 credits) and a culminating experience (3 credits, either a project or a second elective course).

Students will take these courses in a fixed sequence, as follows:

Fall

• EAS 595 Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence
• EAS 501 Numerical Math for Computing and Data Science
• CSE 574 Intro to Machine Learning
• CSE 531 Algorithms Analysis and Design

Spring

• CSE 587 Data Intensive Computing
• CSE 573 Computer Vision OR CSE 635 NLP and Text Mining
• CSE 546 Reinforcement Learning
• CSE 555 Pattern Recognition 

Summer

• EAS 563 AI Capstone (optional; summer internship or project)

Fall

• Elective (or 2 electives, if completing all-course option)

Full time students typically follow a schedule of taking 12 credits fall/spring and 6 credits in their final semester. If students are interested in summer internships, they may take 3 credits in the summer and their final 3 credits in the last fall semester.

Students are required to maintain continuous registration until they complete the program. Full-time status is 12 credit hours. If students meet the requirement to be registered for less than 12 credit hours, then a certification of full-time status form must be completed with the Graduate Coordinator. International students should contact ISSS about a reduced course load form as well.

As part of the degree requirements, students must choose between one of two culminating experience options. The master’s project is the recommended path for graduate students, where students will work on a data science project either via supervised research with a UB faculty member or through an internship in industry. An all-course option is also available for students who want to take an additional elective or cannot find a project to work on. In the all-course option, students will complete an oral presentation in their final semester with the program director.

Students have the opportunity to complete an internship as part of their culminating experience. Students will enroll in 3 credits of EAS 563 to complete this requirement. The earliest students can enroll in the master’s project is after successful completion of two semesters of full-time study.

Students must have their project/internship site approved by the program director. An offer letter is needed that includes the job duties, schedule/hours worked per week, and dates of the internship.

International students must apply for CPT and meet the eligibility requirements. Students who enroll in the fall semester can start CPT the following summer. 

Students should refer to the internships page for more details about internship enrollment and contact their career and internship coach with any questions.

Candidates must meet the Graduate School’s degree conferral requirements to be eligible to graduate:

1. Maintain continuous registration each spring and fall semester until all requirements for the degree have been completed
2. Complete a minimum of 30 credit hours of graduate study
3. Fulfill the minimum residency requirement of 24 UB credits of registration
4. Apply to graduate (in HUB) before deadline.
5. Complete a culminating experience

• Students can choose between an all-course option or Master's Project
• In the final semester students will submit a final paper and complete an oral presentation with the program director to fulfill the culminating experience requirement 

General information regarding graduation from the Graduate School may be found at grad.buffalo.edu/succeed/graduate/requirements. This includes information regarding deadlines, required forms, and a checklist of requirements.