This page contains common questions and answers about the Columbia Dual M.S. in Journalism and Computer Science program.
The program is two degrees, meaning you do the work for a journalism degree and for a CS degree. Thus, we look for evidence that an applicant would succeed in the pure CS masters program.
For this, knowledge of some math (linear algebra, probability, or discrete math) and introductory CS courses (intro to CS, algorithms, data structures, etc) are great. Having a practical background in software development is also great, especially if you can articulate the technical parts of what you have learned and done.
There aren’t specific classes we look for because many applicants did not have a CS undergraduate degree. There are many online courses and resources these days, and using them to brush up on CS (and articulating how you’ve learned and used that knowledge) can only help.
In summary, we really do look at the entire application to assess each applicant.