Introduction

Some students have emailed me about the Concurrent Bachelor’s / Master’s Degree at Brown University. The University (likely on purpose) does not publicize this program much—the Deans told me that at most 8–12 students complete this program every year—and so there’s not too much information available about the program. But, if you can wade through the hard-to-find documentation about the program, it’s a pretty attractive program if you’d land up completing (or getting close to completing) the requirements anyways.

First, Eric Jang has a great blog post detailing his Concurrent Degree petition from 2015. This post contains some information about my specific program that attempts to build off of Eric’s post with new information, reaffirm still-relevant information, and also just provide an example of the course plan I went through.

Requirements

There are several requirements to complete the Concurrent Degree:

Credit Requirement: You must complete 38 credits. You can count two courses from your undergraduate degree towards your masters degree, if any are applicable—doing this reduces your credit requirement to 36.
Breadth Requirement: You must complete 10 courses outside of your concentration. Of these 10 courses, you must take 2 courses within each of the “areas of study” outside of your concentration. The areas of study are defined as Humanities, Physical Science, Life Science, and Social Science, and the departments contained within those areas of study are detailed in the Concurrent Degree application. These 10 courses must be completed by the end of your 6th semester (when you apply).
Depth Requirement: Of the 10 breadth courses, you must complete 2 courses (outside of your concentration) that are at the 1000-level or greater in a single department.

It’s worth noting that the breadth requirement refers to courses that are not applied towards your undergraduate concentration requirements or masters requirements.

Statement of Purpose

You’ll be asked to submit a “statement of purpose” (SOP) with your application that does the following:

The statement should discuss how this program will enhance your undergraduate education; a description of the graduate program you intend to pursue, including a tentative description of the final research project for the master’s degree (if any); and your professional goals. This statement is comparable to the statement of purpose in a regular graduate school admissions process.

If you’re a student at Brown who’s thinking about pursing this program and want to read my SOP for reference, feel free to email me and I’ll happily send you a copy.

In general, my statement hit the following topics in about 1000 words:

What my professional goals were (in general);
How the Concurrent degree program would help me achieve those goals;
Why I was ready for the program.

I found that the best way to communicate my SOP’s “story” was to dedicate 40% of my SOP to #1, 20% to #2, and 40% to #3, though do what works best for you. Like any SOP, make sure your plan (research, courses, etc.) for the “advanced” component of the Master’s requirements (i.e. the Research track or the Coursework track) connects to the story you’re trying to convey.

Courses

Below are all of the courses that went towards my Concurrent Degree application. I had a somewhat unusual course plan during my first three years, and my unexpected leave of absence in Fall 2019 complicated my degree completion a bit further—I almost gave up on candidacy after I returned from leave—but then I stretched the requirements to their limits to get accepted into the program in my sixth semester.

Semester	Course	Title
Fall 2017	CSCI0190	Accelerated Introduction to Computer Science
	CSCI0330	Introduction to Computer Systems
	CSCI1300	User Interfaces and Experience
	TAPS0260	Stage Lighting
	JAPN0100	Basic Japanese
Spring 2018	CSCI0220	Introduction to Discrete Structures and Probability
	CSCI1660	Introduction to Computer Systems Security
	CSCI1950Y	Logic For Systems
	MATH0520	Linear Algebra
	JAPN0200	Basic Japanese
Fall 2018	CSCI1230	Introduction to Computer Graphics
	CSCI1570	Design and Analysis of Algorithms
	CSCI1575	Algorithms: In Depth
	CSCI1730	Design and Implementation of Programming Languages
	TAPS1280C	Stage Lighting II
Spring 2019	CSCI1670	Operating Systems
	CSCI1690	Operating Systems Laboratory
	CSCI2951O	Foundations of Prescriptive Analytics
	CLPS0620	Social and Moral Development
	EDUC1130	Economics of Education
Spring 2020	APMA1650	Statistical Inference I
	CSCI1380	Distributed Computer Systems
	CSCI1970	Individual Independent Study
	CSCI2300	Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
	PHIL1880	Advanced Deductive Logic
Fall 2020	CSCI1973	Independent Study
	CSCI2951E	Topics in Computer Systems Security
	ECON1090	Introduction to Game Theory
	PHP1690	Technology and Health Behavior Change
	CSCI1650	Software Security and Exploitation
Spring 2021	CSCI1970	Individual Independent Study
	CSCI1973	Independent Study
	CSCI2540	Advanced Probabilistic Methods in Computer Science
	ECON0110	Principles of Economics
Fall 2021	APMA0350	Applied Ordinary Differential Equations
	CSCI0081	TA Apprenticeship: Full Credit
	CSCI1510	Introduction to Cryptography and Computer Security
	CSCI1970	Individual Independent Study

Degree Plan

Below is how I used these courses to fulfill the 2020 ScB requirements and the Masters requirements.

Sc.B. in Computer Science

Category	Sub-Category	Course
Introductory Sequence	19 Track	CSCI0190
		CSCI1730 (1000-level substitution with CSCI0190)
Intermediates	Foundations	CSCI0220
	Systems	CSCI0330
	Mathematics	APMA0350
		APMA1650
		MATH0520
Pathways	Systems	CSCI1380
		CSCI1670
	Security	CSCI1650
		CSCI1660
Additional	Electives	CSCI1575 / CSCI1690 (half-credit substitutions)
		CSCI1970 (thesis as capstone)
		CSCI1970 (thesis as capstone)
	Breadth	CSCI1230
Capstone		Honors Thesis

Sc.M. in Computer Science

Category	Sub-Category	Course
Pathway	Theory	CSCI1570
		CSCI2540
Additional	Electives	CSCI1510
		CSCI1660 (double-counted from Sc.B.)
		CSCI1950Y
	Breadth	CSCI1670 (double-counted from Sc.B.)
Track	2000-Level Coursework	CSCI2951E
		CSCI2951O

Concurrent Degree: Breadth Requirement

Area of Study	Course	Title	Semester
Humanities	TAPS0260	Stage Lighting	Fall 2017
	JAPN0100	Basic Japanese	Fall 2017
	JAPN0200	Basic Japanese	Spring 2018
	TAPS1280C	Stage Lighting II	Fall 2018
	PHIL1880	Advanced Deductive Logic	Spring 2020
Life Science	CLPS0620	Social and Moral Development	Spring 2019
	PHP1690	Technology and Health Behavior Change	Fall 2020
Physical Science	CSCI1300	User Interfaces and User Experience	Fall 2017
	CSCI2300	Human-Computer Interaction	Spring 2020
	CSCI1973	Independent Study	Fall 2020
Social Science	EDUC1130 (depth)	Economics of Education	Spring 2019
	ECON1090 (depth)	Introduction to Game Theory	Fall 2020
	ECON0110	Principles of Economics	Spring 2021¹

Close inspection of my breadth courses will look a little strange if you’re familiar with the requirements as I counted CSCI courses towards my breath requirement in order to fulfill it by the end of my 6th semester. This was technically allowed because the breadth requirement specifically refers to courses that are not applied towards your undergraduate concentration requirements or masters requirements, though I was asked to complete an additional breadth course by the end of my 7th semester (Spring 2021).² I don’t really recommend attempting this strategy. ↩
This appears to be consistent with this newly added (as of January 2022) wording from the official University page: “In extremely rare instances, a student who would otherwise be a strong candidate for the concurrent degrees program, can be granted provisional approval in their 6th semester (or equivalent semester) based on the following three criteria: (1) The student’s application has been approved or endorsed by the department’s Master’s program. (2) The student will have no more than two breadth requirements remaining by the end of their 6th semester. (3) The student will have completed all breadth requirements prior to starting their 8th semester of enrollment. ↩