About the Program

The Master of Arts Program in Cognitive Science aims at introducing the students to the investigation of cognitive processes of various dimensions. It is offered through the cooperation of the Computer Engineering, Linguistics, Philosophy and Psychology Departments.

For a detailed guide of the M.A. program, students are advised to carefully study the student guide.

To fulfill the requirements of the M.A. program, students must complete a minimum of 26/32 credits of course work and submit a thesis supervised by their academic advisor. The course work consists of three courses in each of the two areas selected by the student, plus two free elective graduate courses. Except for COGS 579 Graduate Seminar course, graduate courses are taken with the students of related departments (e.g. If a student chose Linguistics as one of the areas, then s/he will take LING501 with students from Linguistics department). In the second year, students are expected to write a thesis on a topic that involves the two areas in which they specialized in their first year.

The program advisor oversees the selection of courses by the students. The course list for each semester is finalized upon the advisor’s consent.

Each student is expected to take a maximum of eight undergraduate courses in their remedial year in preparation for the program. Four of those courses, one from each disipline, are taken in the first semester of the remedial year. In the second semester, students are expected to select two areas for specialization and take two courses in each of these areas. Those students who hold a Bachelor’s degree in any one of the four disciplines must choose two areas out of the remaining three. An additional requirement for the remedial year is that students take COGS 500 Introduction to Cognitive Science. If any of these courses (or their equivalent) were already taken by the student, those course requirements can be waived by the consent of the advisor.