Software engineers work within a context of constantly changing technologies, challenging application domains, and volatile requirements. They need strong assurances that the project will succeed, in particular, that their software solutions will satisfy customer expectations within the constraints of cost and schedule. (see About OMSE)

The Oregon Master of Software Engineering is a comprehensive and intensive professional graduate degree program designed to provide advanced, state-of-the-practice knowledge and skills commensurate with the needs of the software and information technology industry. Upon successful completion of the program, Portland State University (PSU) will award a Master of Software Engineering (MSE) degree. The target audience for this program includes individuals who are currently working in software development, software maintenance, or software engineering support activities such as quality assurance, configuration management, and process improvement. The program provides software professionals with the practices, techniques, and tools they need to tackle the breadth and depth of software problems they will encounter throughout their careers.

This page provides an overview of this program as well as courses to be completed, MSE program requirements and how to apply.

Program Overview

The Oregon Master of Software Engineering program is intended to provide professionals an opportunity to enhance their skills in the field while earning a graduate degree and credentials that will advance their careers. The program offers software engineering education that is practical, yet cutting edge, and immediately applicable to the job. Students learn how to systematically analyze and reason about complex software-intensive problems. OMSE courses leverage real world problems - often those encountered by students on the job - to facilitate sharing of common issues, discussing trade-offs, and strategizing about solutions.

The principle objective of the program is to educate working professionals with respect to both current and emerging software engineering practices:

• Introduces current and emerging software engineering knowledge and software industry practices
• Provides advanced software engineering education to experienced software practitioners who already have an undergraduate (bachelors) degree in another or related discipline
• The student is able to integrate learning with their personal and work obligations
• Enables the student to earn a full 16-course graduate degree - a Master of Software Engineering

Note: Students enrolled in the Master of Software Engineering program can earn an OMSE Graduate Certificate in Software Engineering (GCSO) enroute to their MSE. Upon completion of the five (5) Tier 1 courses, MSE students may apply for this certificate. MSE students wishing to achieve this mid-program milestone should plan on completing their Tier 1 courses before embarking on many (if any) Tier 2 courses.

Students who complete this course of study will have mastered both foundation and advanced software engineering principles, models, methods and techniques and will be able to:

• Explain alternative software lifecycle models including benefits, shortfalls, what can be tailored, and how they can be adapted to the problem at hand
• Describe processes for organizing software project teams, assessing project risks, breaking-down the work, estimating the work, producing project schedules, monitoring project status, and reporting out progress
• Explain how to lead and motivate software teams and resolve team and customer conflicts
• Practice effective oral and written communications in a software project setting
• Learn how to overcome the essential difficulties of eliciting and specifying requirements
• Write unambiguous requirements, validate requirements and manage changes
• Plan, write and conduct software assurance activities including quality assurance, software inspections, and testing
• Learn how to apply software metrics and quantitative methods to make decisions where a great deal of uncertainty exists
• Learn how to apply abstract models to reason about software systems, specify them, and validate their critical properties
• Explain the strengths and weaknesses of a wide range of architectural styles and design patterns, and learn how to perform sound and reasoned domain analysis and architectural design
• Explain the characteristics and trade-offs - and learn how to apply - the most flexible and useful design techniques including structured, state-based, and object-oriented design
• Explain, apply and develop effective coding techniques, module packaging principles, code reviews, test plans, test cases and procedures, testing tools, and test administration
• Explain and apply strategic software engineering to support long-term process modeling and improvement, product family development, systematic code generation, and reuse of non-code products (e.g. requirements and designs)
• Apply the principles, methods, processes and tools learned, to representative or actual problems encountered
• Identify opportunities for process and product improvements and apply them, together with lessons learned, to improve software processes and product quality.

Curriculum/Courses

The OMSE curriculum is comprised of 48 credits: 39 credits (13 courses) of core OMSE courses and 9 credits (3 courses) of graduate-level elective courses. Pre-approval by the OMSE program office is required for electives.

Students who otherwise qualify but are not able to provide evidence of having met the requirements of computer and software foundations, will be admitted conditionally. This condition is that they complete one or both of the OMSE foundation courses (OMSE 510 Computing Foundations and OMSE 510 Software Foundations) before registering in the Tier 2 OMSE courses (see the curriculum page for more details). Each of these courses qualify as one of the 3 required electives for the program.  

MSE Program Requirements

Students wishing to apply for admission to the Oregon Master of Software Engineering program must minimally have a four-year bachelor's degree and two years of software development experience. The relevance of your work experience should be accomplished through the submitted application documentation - possibly confirmed through an oral interview.

We recommend that qualified students sample an OMSE course, preferably OMSE 500 Principles of Software Engineering, before applying. This course gives an overview of the entire OMSE curriculum and allows you to determine if the OMSE program is a "good fit for you."

Applications for Admission to the masters program are normally reviewed three times a year in the fall, winter and spring.

OMSE and PSU Admission requirements are:

Applicants who do not satisfy the above requirements may be considered for conditional admission on a case-by-case basis. For example, an applicant without the foundational coursework may be granted conditional admission, subject to obtaining a grade of B or better in each of the OMSE 510 foundation courses. In addition to the above requirements, international students may need to provide:

Credit Transferability Rule: Qualified students may take ONLY 15 credits (5 courses), including electives, prior to admission. Ensure that you leave adequate time to process your application for admission to avoid violating this rule. We suggest at least one full term of lead time.

Seven-Year Rule: Portland State University (PSU) mandates all coursework for a degree be completed within a seven-year timeline. Please plan your program accordingly.

Contact the OMSE office for clarification of credit transferability and the seven-year rules.

Academic Requirements: Students must maintain a cumulative Grade Point Average of 3.00 in all courses to be used to earn the MSE degree. A cumulative Grade-Point Average (GPA) of 3.00 must be attained for overall PSU graduate performance.

Award and Transcript: Courses and graduate certificates completed will be transcripted by the University Registrar as part of the student's permanent University record. Students must apply for award of the Master of Software Engineering (MSE) degree which will be awarded once the program requirements are met.

Applying for Admission to the MSE Program

Students apply for admission to the Master of Software Engineering program through the OMSE Program Office. Complete the OMSE Admission Application for admission consideration. Please submit these forms together with other information requested in these forms (e.g. transcripts, letters of reference) as one complete packet to the OMSE Program Office:

Oregon Master of Software Engineering (OMSE)
Portland State University-CMPS, PO Box 751
Portland, OR 97207