Undergraduate program

Students from around the world come to study computer science at Virginia Tech because of our extensive course offerings, career development opportunities, experiential learning, and cutting-edge research opportunities.

Our Bachelor of Science degree program is accredited by the Computing Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Learn more about the department's accreditation, mission, and educational objectives.

From student organizations, such as the Association for Women in Computing, CS-Squared and the Cyber Security Club to undergraduate research and hands-on learning using the latest technology, there are always opportunities to help today's students become the technology leaders and innovators of tomorrow.

Bachelor of Science

Our students enter a well-rounded degree program focused on the design, implementation, performance and usability of computer systems. The program emphasizes software, the aspect of computation that makes computing the powerful and transforming technology it is.

Students get a strong foundation in algorithms, problem-solving, and software development. A diverse set of elective courses provides experience with emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, data mining, graphics, human computer interaction, Internet programming, networking, parallel computing, and software engineering.

A computer science degree prepares students for a wide range of employment options and is a good foundation for graduate study in computer science or other information technology fields.

Students may choose from three majors:

• computer science: a comprehensive foundation preparing students for a wide variety of computing careers.
• secure computing: a more specialized path for those who are especially interested in secure computing and cybersecurity topics.
• data-centric computing: a more specialized path for those who are especially interested in data science, analytics, and computational problems involving large volumes of data.

Minors

• Pairing a minor in computer science with a major in another field can be a powerful career development tool.
• A minor in human-computer interaction is an attractive option for current computer science majors, and also for other majors.
• The minor in cybersecurity, offered through the College of Engineering, includes courses from both the computer science and electrical and computer engineering departments. It offers study in information security, network security, and computer system security to protect sensitive information and the systems and networks used to store and carry it.
• Computer science majors puruse a range of other minors offered at Virginia Tech. Some popular choices include biology, business, and math.

Optional tracks of study

Our majors may choose from a wide range of junior and senior-level electives. To better advise students as they navigate all these choices, we offer advisory tracks that organizes electives around topics in computer science. These include:

• human-computer interaction
• knowledge, information, and data
• media/creative computing
• scientific computing
• systems and networking

Completing a track is not required to graduate, but it allows a student to focus their studies in an area of interest or for a particular career or graduate school option.