1. Changing Your Life with a Career in Computing

2. Switching Fields Changing jobs is not unusual in 2016
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found the median number of years most employees stay with the same employer is 4.2 years.
This may take the individual to a new employer in the same industry or they may enter an entirely new industry
Change often may be for greater job satisfaction (a recent Gallup report suggests less than a third of employees are engaged at work) or higher pay

3. Why Computing? Leads to well-paying jobs
Glassdoor ranked Computer Science as the top paying college major with a median starting salary of $70K
Payscale rated Computer Science as the 7th best paying Masters’ degree with a median starting salary of $95.9K
Can provide great job satisfaction
Computing has high levels of autonomy, manageable complexity, immediate feedback and allows you to use your professional skills
Encourages creativity and has an ubiquitous influence on society

4. Options Second Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science
Master’s degree in Computer Science
Pathway #1: Traditional Grad Prep Track
Post-bac
part-time
starts any quarter- could take up to 12 quarters (at one course per term)
take selected set of undergraduate courses
open admission with GPA requirements
Pathway #2: Accelerated New Beginnings program
full-time
one entry point per year – 3 quarters
take specially designed set of courses with a cohort of peers
competitive admission

5. New Option: Biomedical Informatics Pathway
In collaboration with Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU)
Prepares students for admission to the OHSU MS or MBI in Biomedical Informatics, which has two tracks
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Clinical Informatics
2 + 1 format – 2 quarters of New Beginnings then transfer to OHSU for an additional quarter

6. Program Timeline New Beginnings starts Fall term and ends Spring term.
Students take 12 undergraduate credits each quarter of New Beginnings
PSU’s CS students will begin their MS coursework Summer quarter
OHSU’s Clinical Informatics track will begin MS coursework the Summer quarter
OHSU’s Bioinformatics & Computational Biology track will begin MS coursework Fall quarter

7. New Beginnings Topics – First Quarter
Integers
Sets
Relations
Functions
Counting
Discrete Probability
Vectors and Matrices
Induction
Propositional Logic
Predicate Logic
Graphs & Trees
Boolean Algebra
Languages as strings
Finite Automata
Algorithm and Program Design
Data Types and Data Representation
Conditionals and Loops
Functions and Subprograms
I/O
Dynamic Memory and Pointers
Linear linked lists and Tree Structures
Multi-dimensional arrays
Data abstraction and implementations
Classes and Inheritance
Sorting and Searching
Data management
Correctness, Verification and Testing

8. New Beginnings Topics – Second Quarter
Computer Organization
Compiling, linking, binaries
Debugging, Make
C, C library
Number systems, arithmetic
Data types/representation
Code representation (assembly)
Programs to machine code
Exceptions
Hardware performance
Identifying bottlenecks
Basic Analysis
Brute Force Algorithms
Decrease and Conquer
Transform and Conquer
Divide and Conquer
Greedy Algorithms
Dynamic Programming
Other algorithms
Complexity

9. New Beginnings Topics – Third Quarter (Computer Science)
Operating system services
File systems
Resource management
Synchronization
Processes, process cooperation and interference
Introduction to networks
Protection and security
Foundations of computing
Regular languages and finite automata.
Context-free languages and pushdown automata
Turing machines and equivalent models of computation
Computability
Introduction to complexity

10. New Beginnings Topics – Third Quarter (Biomedical Informatics – to be finalized)
Bioinformatics & Computational Biology prerequisites
Genetics
Statistics
(more to be added)
Clinical Informatics prerequisites
Anatomy and Physiology
Statistics
(more to be added)

11. Enrichment Days Every Friday
Presentations by faculty on their research and interests
Field trips to local software companies
Hackathons and programming contests

12. Admissions Applications are now open - priority deadline is March 1st
Required Qualifications:
GRE Quantitative score in the 70th percentile or higher and a Verbal score in the 50th percentile or higher
Test date must be no older than 3 years
Preferred Qualifications:
At least a year of math beyond pre-calculus linear algebra, calculus, etc.
Undergraduate GPA of 3.5
Interviews begin in March – priority decisions in April
Students accepted to New Beginnings will be asked to complete a Post-bac Application for the University

13. Ready to apply?
Contact the CS Graduate Advisor at to request an application
Applications must be complete to be considered. Complete applications include GRE scores (no older than 3 years) and undergraduate transcripts (unofficial OK)